1 


,§CARDEO 


Columbia  ©niber£(itp 
intt)e(CitpofiieU)|9ork 


LIBRARY 


GIVEN    BY 


GIFT  OF 
H.  W.  WILSON 


AMERICA 
AT  WAR 


BY 

PROFESSOR  W.  F.  OSBORNE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  MANITOBA, 
WINNIPEG,  CANADA 


NEW  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


GIFT   OF 
H.   W.   WILSON 
MAR  2  2   1929 


CX)PTRIGHT,  1917, 
BY   GEORGE   H.  DOR  AN   COMPANY 


PRrNTF.D    TN   TnT:    TTXTTED    STATES   OV   AMERICA 


TO 

JOHN  W.  DAFOE, 

THE  ABLE  EDITOR  OF  THE  MANITOBA  FREE  PRESS,  WHOSE 

ADVOCACY  OF  CANADA'S  FULL  PARTICIPATION  IN  THE 

WORLD    STRUGGLE    FOR    DEMOCRACY    HAS    BEEN 

SO     CONSISTENT     AND     SO     POWTERFUL, 

THIS   RECORD    OF   A   MEMORABLE 

MONTH   IS  INSCRIBED 


PREFACE 

Early  in  April,  1917,  I  was  asked  by  the 
Manitoba  Free  Press  to  go  to  Washington  as 
Special  Correspondent  to  report  upon  the  move- 
ment of  the  United  States  into  the  great  world 
war. 

Never  before  had  I  witnessed  so  absorbing 
or  so  exhilarating  a  spectacle.  Two  features 
about  the  American  situation  affected  me  most 
strongly.  One  was  the  readiness  and  the  ca- 
pacity of  the  American  people  for  organized 
effort  on  a  great  scale.  The  other  was  the  ex- 
tent to  which  Ideality  is  now  the  outstanding 
characteristic  of  the  American  Eepublic.  One 
hundred  million  free  citizens  advancing  into 
the  most  desolating  of  struggles  with  no  thought 
or  prospect  of  ulterior  advantage  is  one  of  the 
most  inspiring  incidents  in  the  history  of  the 
world.  At  the  same  time  I  cannot  help  record- 
ing my  conviction  that,  as  a  by-product  of  the 
war,  great  national  advantage  will  accrue  to 
the  United  States  as  a  result  of  its  participa- 
tion. Upon  the  vast,  conglomerate  America 
that  has  grown  up  since  the  Civil  War,  the  seal 

vii 


viii  PREFACE 

of  a  unified  Americanism  will  now  finally  be  set. 
All  classes,  conditions,  and  races  of  America 
henceforth  know  that  tliey  can  live  and  prosper 
under  the  American  Ihig  only  on  the  condition 
of  an  unreserved  devotion  to  the  self-deter- 
mined purposes  of  the  Nation.  For  the  achiev- 
ing of  this  great  result  the  immediate  adoption 
of  Selective  Conscription  will  he  largely  to 
thank.  I  therefore  heartily  applaud  the  wisdom 
of  that  policy. 

Into  the  American  atmosphere,  thus  created 
by  the  Declaration  of  a  State  of  War  against 
Germany,  came  the  two  great  Missions,  the 
French  and  the  British.  Never  were  National 
delegations  more  admirably  timed,  never  were 
they  more  admirably  constituted.  To  the  work 
and  character  of  these  Missions  I  have  paid 
somewhat  large  attention  in  the  course  of  this 
Correspondence.  The  variety  and  the  power 
of  great  personality  were  never  better  illus- 
trated than  in  the  persons  of  Joffre,  Viviani, 
and  Balfour.  The  coming  of  Viviani  and  Joffre 
offered  an  opportunity  for  the  expression  of 
America's  traditional  and  fully  justified  cordial- 
ity to  France.  The  character  and  the  deliver- 
ances of  Balfour  disclosed  to  the  United  States, 
as  it  had  never  been  disclosed  before,  the  splen- 
didly democratic  spirit  of  modem  Britain. 

The  only  consequence  of  this  war  that  can  be 


PREFACE  ix 

an  adequate  compensation  for  the  disastrous 
losses  it  has  made  necessary,  will  be  ^'a  world 
made  safe  for  Democracy,''  a  world  rationally 
and  legally  organised  on  the  basis  and  for  the 
purposes  of  Peace.  The  intervention  of  the 
United  States  makes  it  finally  inevitable  that 
this  end  shall  be  the  end  that  will  be  preponder- 
atingiy  safeguarded  in  the  negotiations  that  will 
ultimately  terminate  hostilities. 

In  themselves,  and  so  far  as  my  part  is  con- 
cerned, the  contents  of  this  volume  are  not 
worthy  of  being  put  in  book  form.  They  are  so 
published  simply  as  a  contemporary  picture  of 
a  momentous  event.  A  photograph  may  be 
negligible  in  itself  and  yet  be  useful,  and  even 
precious,  as  a  more  or  less  permanent  record  of 
an  absorbing  moment. 

The  reading  of  the  proofs  has  been  made 
delightful  by  the  comradeship  and  assistance 
of  my  friend,  Salem  Goldworth  Bland. 

W.  F.  0. 
Minaki,  Ont. 

Aug.  25th,  1917. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I     The  Campaign  fob  the  Making  of  Public  Opin- 
ion    15 

II     A  Talk  With  A  German-American 21 

III     To  Free  the  World  of  Brigandage 28 

rV     Press  and  Pulpit  Fusing  Public  Opinion 34 

V     War  Feeling  in  Congress 40 

VI     The  British  Ambassador.    A  Day  in  the  Senate  46 

VII      Some  Public  Men  in  Action 52 

VIII     Americanism  Now  in  the  Saddle 58 

IX     Public  Opinion  Stern  Against  Sedition 64 

X     Senator  Lodge;  Compliments  To  Canada 70 

XI     Red-hot  Army  Debate  in  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives   75 

XII      Balfour  and  Joffre 82 

XIII  Champ  Clark  Throws  Down  the  Gauntlet  To 

Wilson 88 

XIV  A  German-born  Supporter  of  Wilson 96 

XV     Interview    With    Hovelaque,    Intellectual 

Representative  of  France 102 

XVI     The  Relation  of  America  To  the  Orphans  and 

Universities  of  France 107 

XVn     The  Victor  of  the  Marne — Joffre  at  Short 

Range 113 

XVIII     Joffre  and  Viviani  in  the  American  Senate  ...  118 

XIX     Speeding-up    of    American    Production    For 

War-time.     1 122 

XX     Speeding-up    of   American    Production    Fob 

Wab-time.    II 129 

xi 


xu 


CONTENTS 


XXI      Obganization   of  the  Nation  On  AVar   Habls 

Procekds  Apace i:M 

XXII      WooDRow  Wilson  and  Arthur  Balfour  in  the 

House  of  llEPREaENTATivEs 140 

XXIII  ^Werica  Rallying  in  a  Ferment  of  Activity  . .     14G 

XXIV  Maryland's  Capital  in  War-time 152 

XXV      Penn's  City  En  Fete  fob  the  French  Envoys.  .     158 

XXVI      Wilson  and  Roosevelt 1G4 

XXVII      The    Banquet   of   All   the   Talents   at   the 

Waldorf 173 

XXVIII      British  Preachers  in  New  York:  Hugh  Black 

and  Jowett 181 

XXIX      An  Ensemble  View  of  America's  First  Month 

AND  A  Half  of  War 190 


AMERICA   AT   WAR 


AMERICA   AT    WAR 


THE  CAMPAIGN  FOR  THE  MAKING  OF  PUBLIC  OPINION 

Chicago^  April  M,  1917. 

AT  the  entrance  to  the  Union  depot  at  Mil- 
waukee I  found  the  following  recruiting 
appeal :  ^ '  To  all  brave,  healthy,  able-bodied  and 
well-disposed  young  men  in  this  neighbourhood 
who  have  any  inclination  to  join  the  troops  now 
raising  under  Gen.  Washington  in  the  defence 
of  the  liberties  and  independence  of  the  United 
States,  against  the  hostile  designs  of  foreign 
enemies,  take  notice :" — (Beneath  is  the  laconic 
injunction)  *^Do  as  our  forefathers  did  in 
1776/' 

W4iat  I  saw  in  Milwaukee  serves  to  confirm 
the  analysis  of  German- American  psychology 
made  by  Woehlke  and  Kuno  Francke  in  the  cur- 
rent issue  of  The  Century  Magazine.  The  lat- 
ter's  pronunciamento  concludes  with  the  words: 
*  ^  My  oath  of  loyalty  to  America  knows  no  con- 

15 


16  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

dition  or  rosorvutioiis."  This  morning's  issue 
of  the  Gcrmania-lh'rold  contains  a  report  of 
certain  recommendations  about  to  be  made  by 
the  Association  of  Milwaukee  School  Principals 
for  the  betterment  of  the  system.  Among  these 
is  one  to  the  effect  that  instruction  in  foreign 
languages  should  be  suppressed  in  the  four  low- 
est grades  of  the  Public  Schools.  Of  course  it 
will  doubtless  be  easier  to  recommend  this  than 
to  get  it  carried  through. 

The  big  headline  of  the  Chicago  Daily  Trib- 
une to-day  is  symptomatic:  *^The  U.  S.  to  Win 
War — Lloyd  George.''  Here  we  have  an  illus- 
tration of  the  perfectly  legitimate  national 
pride  of  America,  which  will  lead  her,  now  she 
is  in  the  war,  to  wage  it  in  a  way  and  on  a  scale 
worthy  of  her  resources.  The  Tribune  takes  a 
strong  line  for  compulsory  service.  A  front 
page  cartoon  represents  Uncle  Sam  sitting  per- 
plexed in  a  stalled  car, — Volunteer  system ;  two 
men,  representing  Army  and  Navy,  have  got 
out  and  got  under  and  are  doing  their  best  to 
eliminate  the  trouble,  but  the  car  won't  budge. 
The  legend  underneath  is:  **This  car  never 
works  when  I  want  it  to."  The  newspai>ers  all 
up  and  down  the  countiy  are  pouring  in  hot 
shot  that  no  population  could  resist.  The  head- 
lines are  full  of  thrust  and  of  cordiality  for 
the  Allies.  *^  British  Battle  Snow  and  Germans, 
and  Whip  Both,"  is  an  example  to-day. 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  17 

The  truth  is,  a  campaign  of  extraordinary 
vigour  for  the  manufacturing  of  public  opinion 
is  proceeding  all  up  and  down  the  country.  The 
welkin  is  ringing  with  clarion  calls  of  all  sorts. 
The  Ministerial  Associations  of  Chicago  have 
proposed  that  Sunday,  April  22nd,  be  set  aside 
as  *^Sow  and  Save  Sunday."  Economy  and 
increased  production  are  on  every  lip.  Gover- 
nors of  states,  state  legislatures  or  commit- 
tees appointed  by  these,  and  agricultural  col- 
leges, are  assuming  the  leadership  of  this  move- 
ment. The  potato  expert  of  the  Southern  Pa- 
cific Railway  to-day  issues  an  appeal  for  re- 
trenchment in  potatoes.  *^  Every  decent  potato 
in  the  country  will  be  needed  for  seed,"  he  says. 
He  adds  that  an  acre  of  potatoes  represents  ten 
times  as  much  food*  value  as  an  acre  of  wheat. 
Here  one  sees  the  outcome  of  America's  prac- 
tice in  nation-wide  campaigns  of  one  sort  and 
another.  '^Safety  First,"  *^ Clean-up  Week" 
propagandas,  and  all  that  kind  of  thing  have 
accustomed  this  vast  people  to  respond  almost 
as  one  man  to  specific  incitements.  The  people 
will  now  apply  this  method  to  war  measures. 

The  fact  is,  in  comparison  with  them  we  Ca- 
nadians are  the  merest  tyros  in  knowing  how  to 
achieve  nation-wide  action.  The  agricultural 
colleges  and  the  universities  have  at  one  bound 
sprung  into  a  position  of  leadership  in  prob- 
lems connected  with  the  war.     Ninety  college 


18  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

and  university  presidents  are  meeting  in  Chi- 
cago to  concert  measures  as  to  how  their  insti- 
tutions can  best  contribute  to  meet  the  national 
exigencies.  Day  before  yesterday  100  lUinois 
legislators  visited  the  state  university  at  Cham- 
paign. They  wanted  to  find  out  what  warrant 
there  was  for  the  large  grants  being  asked  for 
by  the  university.  The  university  is  asking  five 
million  dollars  for  the  biennium  and  a  ten  mil- 
lioi;  dollar  building  appropriation.  The  point  I 
want  to  make  is  that  the  whole  case  advanced 
by  the  president  and  staff  was  conceived  in  na- 
tional terms.  The  demonstrations  put  on  be- 
fore the  legislators  culminated  in  a  review  of 
two  university  regiments  who  are  ready  to 
serve  their  country.  To  realise  the  vigour  of 
the  collective  action  being  taken  in  view  of  war, 
note  the  peremptory  orders  issued  yesterday 
for  the  closing  of  all  radio-stations  or  wireless 
equipments  in  and  about  Chicago.  The  order 
is  said  to  have  reference  to  no  less  than  4,000 
such  installations  in  Chicago  and  in  the  terri- 
tory tributary  to  it.  The  apparatus  will  be 
confiscated  if  not  taken  out  of  commission  with- 
in forty-eight  hours. 

Eunning  into  Chicago  I  had  a  most  illuminat- 
ing conversation  with  a  traveller  representing  a 
Chicago  steel  firm.  He  expressed  great  satis- 
faction that  at  last  the  middle  west  was  catch- 
ing up  to  the  east  in  the  matter  of  war  delibera- 


AMERICAATWAR  19 

tion.  When  I  referred  to  my  gratification  over 
the  apparent  state  of  feeling  in  Milwaukee,  he 
said  that,  of  course,  as  yet  in  states  like  Wis- 
consin this  is  a  matter  of  the  large  towns.  The 
small  towns  are  still  apathetic,  and  in  some 
instances  hostile.  He  cited  the  case  of  Sheboy- 
gan, a  town  85  miles  up  the  lake  from  Milwau- 
kee, 80  or  90  per  cent,  of  the  population  Ger- 
man. Short  time  ago,  referendum  submitted  on 
the  war.  Out  of  a  population  of  18,000,  12,000 
voted.  Less  than  100  voted  for  war  with  Ger- 
many. ^^But,''  said  he,  *^the  question  was 
wrangly  put :  *  Are  you,  or  are  you  not  in  favour 
of  warT  Good  heavens,  who  wants  war?  I 
don%  and  yet  I  know  we  ought  to  go  into  this 
one.''  He  cited  the  analogous  case  of  Monro, 
a  small  Swiss-German  town  in  the  same  state. 
The  fact  seems  to  be  this.  The  overwhelming 
majority  of  the  intellectual  elements  of  the 
country  have  been  hostile  to  Germany  from  the 
outset.  From  them  it  has  spread  to  the  general 
population,  above  all  in  the  east.  From  the  east 
this  sentiment  has  spread  west,  where  it  has 
seized  first  the  large  towns  and  cities.  The 
country  is  now  in  process  of  a  movement  that 
is  destined  rapidly  to  inoculate  the  population 
of  small  towns  and  of  the  agr*  ultural  districts. 
This  movement  of  ideas  is  perfectly  natural 
and  normal,  and  I  think  we  should  be  satisfied 
with  it. 


20  a:\ierica  at  war 

I  have  now  to  give  you  Avliat  I  think  much  the 
best  part  of  tliis  ]\Iil\vaukee-Chicago  conversa- 
tion. My  companion  proceeded  to  tell  me  about 
his  employer,  Donald  Ryerson,  vice-president  of 
the  Ryerson  Stool  Company.  He  is  thirty-throe 
years  of  age.  Has  now  and  always  had  all  that 
a  man  need  desire  in  the  way  of  wealth.  He 
has  resigned  as  vice-president  of  the  company, 
has  subscribed  $85,000  to  equip  a  submarine 
chaser,  and  is  training  for  a  lieutenant's  com- 
mission. He  will  take  charge  of  his  own  boat. 
Incidentally  he  is  giving  recruiting  speeches. 
One  of  his  1,500  employees  said,  after  hearing 
him  speak:  ^'I  wouldn't  like  to  be  a  submarine 
if  he  comes  up  with  it.  He'd  jump  on  it  with 
a  knife,  if  he  hadn't  anything  else!"  Talking 
to  his  employee,  my  interlocutor,  Ryerson  has 
said  that  what  above  all  stung  him  into  action 
was  what  he  aptly  called  **  curb-stone  criticism 
of  the  rich  man's  son."  In  other  words  he  is 
going  to  do  his  part  to  show  that  rich  America 
is  not  degenerate.  We  may  take  off  our  hats 
to  wealthy  America,  so  far  as  he  represents  its 
spirit.  A  little  later  as,  standing  on  Michigan 
avenue,  I  watched  the  myriads  of  sumptuous 
motors  roll  past  with  dizzying  swiftness,  I  said 
to  myself:  ^^This  war  if  America  really  par- 
takes of  its  agony  will  save  the  great  soul  of 
this  country."  And,  really,  one  wonders  what 
else  would  have  achieved  that  salvation. 


n 


A  TALK  WITH  A  GEKMAN-AMEEICAN 

Earrisburg,  Pa.,  April  16. 

WALKING  down  the  streets  of  Pittsburg 
this  morning  I  found  them  aglow — as 
much  as  anything  could  be  aglow  in  that  murky- 
atmosphere — with  flags. 

Yesterday  a  picture  theatre  proprietor,  Coss- 
man  by  name,  somewhat  narrowly  escaped 
lynching  in  Pittsburg.  He  scattered  posters  in- 
viting the  public  to  visit  his  theatre  to  see  a 
film  that  would  show  them  why  they  should 
not  participate  in  the  European  war.  Being  set 
on  by  the  crowd,  a  policeman  rescued  him  and 
at  the  same  time  took  him  into  custody.  Both 
had  some  difficulty  making  their  way  to  the 
police  station. 

Emerging  from  the  Pittsburg  depot  I  fell  in 
with  a  German.  Indeed,  he  overtook  me  and 
hailed  me  with  a  cordiality  that  a  circumstance 
disclosed  later  will  explain.  The  psychology 
of  the  German- American  is  a  factor  of  no  little 
importance  in  the  present  American  situation; 
so  I  am  going  to  try  to  detail  as  much  as  I  can 
of  my  interview  with  him.     He  was  born  in 

21 


2a  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

America,  but  returned  with  bis  parents  to  Ger- 
many ^vhen  he  was  four  years  okl.  He  was 
educated  there,  passing  through  the  gym- 
nasium, and  then  came  back  to  this  country. 
His  mother  is  in  Germany  to-day.  He  was  in 
England  at  the  time  of  the  Boer  war.  Spent 
two  and  a  half  years  there.  He  is  quite  evi- 
dently a  highly  intelligent  and  alert  fellow. 

The  taJk  leaped  at  once  to  the  war,  and  the 
first  thing  he  said  was  ^^I'll  be  damned  glad 
when  it's  all  over.''  When  we  had  got  seated 
at  the  breakfast  table  in  the  Fort  Pitt  hotel,  I 
asked:  *^Have  you  any  feeling  that  President 
Wilson  did  not  do  his  very  best  to  keep  the 
United  States  out  of  the  war?"  He  flushed, 
showed  evident  signs  of  excitement,  and  then 
said:  **As  far  as  my  personal  views  are  con- 
cerned, I  have  decided  to  keep  my  mouth  shut. 
Then  I  can  think  what  I  please.  No  one  can 
keep  me  from  doing  that."  From  that  time 
forward  for  a  little  while  I  had  to  step  a  wary 
course.  It  looked  for  a  bit  as  if  he  would  not 
talk  at  all.  Gradually,  though,  he  thawed. 
Without  trj^ing  to  make  a  smooth  story  out  of 
it  I  shall  just  rapidly  detail  his  views.  I  have 
no  doubt  they  are  very  symptomatic ;  and  when 
we  recall  the  huge  strain  of  German  popula- 
tion living  under  the  Stars  and  Stripes  it  is 
apparent  that  if  we  Canadians  want  to  under- 
stand the  intricacies  of  the  American  situation 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  23 

WG  must  try  to  fathom  the  German-American 
mentality. 

He  said  he  would  not  discuss  the  immediate 
origins  of  the  present  war.  Suffice  it  to  say, 
diplomacy  was  to  blame  for  bad  relations  in 
Europe.  Here  England  must  bear  her  share 
of  the  blame.  She  should  have  recognised  Ger- 
many's growing  power.  She  should  have  given 
her  an  economic  chance.  She  should  have  made 
a  deal  with  her.  They  two  could  have  assured 
the  peace  of  the  world.  Wlien  I  asked: 
*^ Didn't  a  man  like  Haldane  do  his  best?" 
he  admitted  that  Haldane  did.  *^What  about 
Winston  Churchill's  proposal  for  a  naval  holi- 
day and  an  arrest  of  the  mounting  armament 
business?  Did  not  Germany  answer  this  by 
accelerating  her  building  programme!"  No 
an-swer  to  this. 

'^I'll  tell  you  something,"  he  said.  *'This  is 
the  beginning  of  the  end  of  the  white  races. 
Japan  is  getting  her  work  in  with  China  while 
Europe  is  bleeding  itself  white.  A  clash  be- 
tween the  yellow  and  the  white  races  is  sure, 
and  I'm  afraid  when  the  time  comes  the  white 
races  won't  be  there.  There  can  be  no  *  patch- 
ing' between  the  yellow  races  and  the  white. 
You  know  you  Canadians  yourselves  won't 
have  the  Oriental  immigrants,  which  shows 
that  you  do  not  like  them.  And  Europe  is  go- 
ing to  be   exhausted;  because,  mark  what  I 


2^  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

say,  they  are  all — not  Germany  alone,  but  all 
of  tlicm — going  to  be  on  the  verge  of  bank- 
rnptcy/'  I  interjected:  *'Do  you  mean  that 
this  war  will  leave  such  wounds  that  antago- 
nists of  to-day  will  not  co-operate  when  it  be- 
comes desirable  for  them  to  meet  a  modernised 
Orient?''  *^0h,  yes,  they'll  co-operate,  because 
they  will  have  to;  but  they  will  not  recover 
economically  soon  enough  to  meet  the  great 
danger  that  the  future  holds  for  them.'' 

I  told  him  how  I  had  admired  the  German 
people,  and  how  their  standard,  classical  litera- 
ture had  always  appealed  to  me.  I  spoke  affec- 
tionately of  a  piece  like  Schiller's  ^^Wilhelm 
Tell,"  and  tried  to  argue  from  the  qualities  of 
that  literature  to  the  loyal,  sterling  characteris- 
tics of  the  German  people.  *'I  think,"  I  said, 
*'and  the  majority  of  British  citizens  think, 
that  the  Germans  are  simply  a  misled  people. 
They  have  been  perverted  by  the  kaiser  and 
the  Prussian  military  class." 

**You  are  mistaken,"  he  said.  He  then 
gave  me  an  analysis  which  may  .have  something 
in  it,  though  I  do  not  know  that  it  gets  rid 
of  my  charge  of  the  perversion  of  a  people 
by  false  aims  and  policies.  *^The  German  peo- 
ple," K.  said,  **are  the  good,  sterling  people 
you  picture.  But  they  were  a  poor  people. 
They  were  not  successful  traders.  Their  coun- 
try has  not  great  resources  naturally.     Their 


AMERICAATWAR  25 

rulers  decided,  not  in  selfishness,  but  in  the  in- 
terests of  the  people  themselves,  that  the  old 
methods  would  not  do.  If  the  German  people 
were  to  achieve  competence,  if  it  were  to  play 
any  part  in  the  world,  it  must  be  marshalled 
and  directed  by  the  state.  The  present  kaiser 
has  not  done  it  all.  Bismarck  was  one  of  the 
great  ones,  but  the  beginning  lies  even  back 
of  him.  The  government  policy  of  concerning 
itself  intimately  with  every  part  of  the  life  of 
the  people,  so  as  to  eliminate  poverty,  so  as  to 
promote  trade — the  kaiser  has  only  completed 
that  policy.  The  transformation  has  been  ef- 
fected. The  Germans  are  no  longer  a  poor 
people.  They  have  lost  certain  qualities  in  the 
process.  (What  these  were  he  did  not  specify; 
and  I  did  not  like  to  press  him  too  closely.) 

**You  talk  about  liberty.  In  England  and 
America  you  have  moral  liberty,  but  you  have 
not  ^ material^  liberty. ''  He  here  alluded  to  the 
gross  poverty  he  had  witnessed  in  London. 
*^In  Germany  we  don't  have  that.  What  good 
does  it  do  me  to  say,  I  can  do  as  I  please,  if 
I  am  so  poor,  or  so  starv^ed  that  there  is  hardly 
anything  I  can  do!  And  anyway,  there  is  as 
much  freedom  of  thought  and  speech  in  Ger- 
many as  there  is  here  in  America.''  '^What 
about  arrests  for  lese  majeste?"  I  asked. 
^^You  can't  insult  the  kaiser,  but  neither  can 
you  insult  any  one  else.     One  thing,  I  never 


«6  AMERICAATWAR 

saw  a  man's  Load  split  open  by  tlie  police  in 
Germany,  and  I  have  seen  it  done  a  number 
of  times  here  in  free  America.'' 

I  asked  him  in  so  many  words  if  he  had  a 
feeling  of  isolation  under  present  circum- 
stances. He  said  he  had.  **You  know,"  he  said, 
** there  is  a  good  deal  of  bitterness."  Ho  then 
added  that  I  myself  had  had  a  narrow  escape 
the  night  before  on  the  train  between  Chicago 
and  Pittsburg.  I  had  been  reading  tlie  Chi- 
cago Ah  end  post,  and  he  confided  in  me  that  I 
had  been  the  object  of  quite  a  few  suspicious 
glances.  I  then  realised  that  it  was  the  cir- 
cumstance that  he  had  seen  me  reading  a  Ger- 
man newspaper  the  night  before  that  led  him, 
in  a  feeling  of  very  considerable  isolation,  to 
hail  me  at  Pittsburg  with  some  eagerness.  I 
said  that  it  was  my  intention  to  read  the  Ger- 
man-American papers  as  much  as  possible,  be- 
cause I  wished  to  get  the  point  of  view.  ^'Well, 
you'll  not  get  it  now,  you  may  be  sure."  He 
went  on  to  say  that  the  majority  of  the  Ger- 
mans in  this  country  being  American  citizens, 
it  would  be  wholly  unwise  of  these  papers,  by 
voicing  their  real  feelings,  to  incite  these  citi- 
zens to  unwise  action.  The  upshot  is  that  this 
particular  German  feels  to-day  in  America  a 
sharp  sense  of  isolation.  He  confesses  that 
there  is  a  feeling  of  bitterness  on  the  part  of 
his  compatriots,  which,  however,  he  thinks  will 


AMERICAATWAR  Ti 

find  little  expression  in  words  and  none  in  dis- 
ruptive action. 

At  Johnstown,  scene  of  the  famous  flood,  the 
station  platform  was  thronged  with  people 
waving  flags.  Three  young  men  were  leaving 
for  Harrisburg  to  enlist.  The  scene  was  very 
like  those  we  witnessed  in  Canada  in  the  early 
days  of  the  war. 


Ill 

TO    FREE    THE    WORLD    OF    BRIGANDAGE 

WasMngton,  D.  C,  April  16. 

SUNDAY  morning  from  7  to  11  I  had  a  de- 
lightful ride  from  Harrisburg,  the  capital 
of  Pennsylvania,  to  Washington,  the  capital 
of  the  nation.  Through  smiling  champaigns 
and  beside  winding  brooks  glancing  in  the  sun- 
shine, we  rolled.  The  first  tender  April  green 
was  just  peeping  from  the  branches  of  the 
trees.  Only  one  other  railroad  ride  have  I 
ever  had  that  I  would  compare  with  this  one — 
a  journey,  similarly  on  a  Sunday  morning,  in 
1904,  from  Liverpool  to  London. 

As  we  drew,  through  noble  approaches,  into 
Baltimore,  I  saw  at  one  and  the  same  time 
on  the  summits  of  five  commanding  eminences 
as  many  handsome  country  residences.  From 
three  of  these  floated  the  Stars  and  Stripes, 
evidence  of  the  heightened  feeling  of  the  coun- 
try. 0  God,  how  my  heart  glowed  as  I  traversed 
this  landscape,  to  think  that  at  last  this  great 
country — its  prosperity,  broad-based  in  mate- 
rial  resources,   its    soul    swelling   ever   more 

28 


AMERICAATWAR  29 

and  more  steadily  into  a  splendid  demonstra- 
tion of  ideality — stands  at  last  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  the  little  isle  set  in  the  silver 
sea,  our  beloved  and  imperial  England! 

I  neglected  to  tell  earlier  of  an  affecting 
thing  I  came  upon  in  Chicago — a  little  detail 
that  illustrates  the  multitude  of  forces,  big  and 
small,  which  are  to-day  operating  on  the  Amer- 
ican war  psychology.  In  a  window  of  the 
arcade  in  the  Stevens^  building  I  saw  a  fair- 
haired  boy  doll  dressed  in  shirt  and  suit  said 
to  have  been  made  by  a  French  mother  from 
the  garments  worn  by  her  son  when  he  fell 
mortally  wounded  in  the  battle  of  the  Mame. 
That  mother  has  now  given  her  five  sons  to 
the  defence  of  France.  Over  the  doll's  heart 
is  a  dull  red  stain,  declared  to  be  the  very  blood 
of  the  French  youth.  Among  all  the  chords  to 
which  the  heart  of  America  is  to-day  respond- 
ing, scarcely  any  is  more  powerful  than  ad- 
miration for  the  austerity  of  France  through- 
out the  present  conflict,  and  grateful  memory 
of  what  France  did  for  America  at  the  time 
of  the  War  of  Independence.  The  Baltimore 
Sun  this  morning  estimates  the  number  of 
French  soldiers  who  assisted  the  Americans  in 
the  Revolutionary  War  at  45,000 ;  and  the  finan- 
cial expenditure  of  France  at  that  time  in  the 
American  interest  at  not  much  less  than  three- 
quarters  of  a  billion  dollars.     This   reminis- 


30  AMERICAATWAR 

conce  bulked  bliif  Saturday  in  the  congressional 
debate  on  the  loan  to  the  allies. 

At  what  an  extraordinarily  interesting  con- 
duction I  reach  this  noble  capital,  to  watch  for 
the  Free  Press  the  inception  of  the  great  enter- 
prise which  is  now  engrossing  the  attention  of 
the  American  people!  Yesterday  about  1 
o'clock  the  House  of  Representatives,  without  a 
dissenting  vote,  passed  the  bill  appropriating 
for  the  prosecution  of  war  with  Germany  seven 
billions  of  dollars — the  largest  single  war  ap- 
propriation made  in  the  history  of  nations. 
This  is  the  first  big  practical  stroke  of  the  policy 
which  means  the  end  of  the  tradition  of  Ameri- 
can isolation.  The  George  "Washington  chapter 
of  American  histor}^  in  this  respect  is  closed. 

Secondly,  it  means  that  the  sad  circuit  begun 
with  the  War  of  Independence  is  completed. 
The  two  great  branches  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
family  are  once  more  united  for  the  larger  pur- 
poses of  public  policy.  "What  is  more,  it  means 
that  America  enters  with  a  will  on  the  task  of 
ridding  the  world  of  piracy  and  brigandage. 
Here  the  task  which  the  United  States  is  daily 
more  and  more  completely  accepting  as  inte- 
grally her  own  represents  a  rock-bottom  Anglo- 
Saxon  principle.  On  the  threshold  of  the  litera- 
ture common  to  Britons  and  Americans  stands 
Beowulf.  Beowulf  first  rid  the  Hall  of  Heorot 
of  the  looting  dragon  Grendel,  and  then  fol- 


AMERICAATWAR  31 

lowed  the  monster  to  its  lair  in  the  depths  of 
the  sea.  Later  Arthur  and  his  knights  set 
themselves  to  fell  noisome  forests,  to  drain 
miasmal  swamps,  to  make  the  ways  of  the  world 
safe  and  clear.  To-day  the  new  Beowulf  or 
the  new  Arthur  as  you  choose  to  think  of  it, 
in  other  words  the  reunited  Anglo-Saxon  race, 
sets  itself  to  hunt  the  dragon  from  the  seas 
and  fields. 

It  might  easily  be  thought  in  Canada  that 
undue  emphasis  is  being  laid  here  on  the  im- 
portance of  conservation  and  production.  That 
is,  one  might  think  that  exaggerated  importance 
is  being  given  to  the  economic  aspects  of  the 
war,  to  the  relative  exclusion  of  actual  armed 
assistance.  Undeniably  the  pendulum  might 
swing  too  far  that  way.  The  Chicago  Abend- 
Post  Friday  had  a  cartoon,  '^776  vs.  1917.'' 
Seventeen  hundred  and  seventy-six  showed  the 
minuteman  dropping  his  plough-handle  and 
seizing  his  musket ;  1917  shows  a  western  agri- 
culturist busy  at  work  in  the  field.  It  would 
not  be  wise  to  decide  hurriedly,  however,  that 
America  will  make  this  mistake.  In  the  first 
place  most  of  the  advice  she  is  receiving  from 
Europe — the  latest  is  the  series  of  five  des- 
patches on  the  mistakes  of  the  allies,  the  first 
of  which  appeared  this  morning  in  the  New 
York  Tribune,  and  a  syndicate  of  papers,  in- 
cluding the  Baltimore  Sun — rings  the  changes 


32  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

on  food  and  supplies  generally.  Lord  North- 
cliffe  expi'ossly  says  to  America:  **You  have 
no  need  to  hurry  unduly  with  your  troops." 
Of  course,  he  says  this  in  contrast  with  his 
other  remark:  **We,  for  our  part,  especially  at 
the  start,  had  to  hurry. '^  Secondly,  we  may 
be  sure  tliat  American  pride  will  insist  on  pro- 
viding effective  armed  aid,  both  on  sea  and 
land.  In  the  third  place,  a  little  consideration 
of  this  enormous  population  shows  that — par- 
ticularly if  compulsory  service  by  selective 
draft  wins  the  day — the  unattached  and  less 
confessedly  productive  elements  of  the  popula- 
tion can  produce  a  big  army  without  crippling 
primarily  productive  classes. 

One  thing  that  is  sure  is  that  in  collective 
national  thinking  and  planning  with  respect  to 
war  exigencies,  the  United  States  is  farther 
advanced  eight  days  after  the  declaration  of  a 
state  of  war  than  Canada  is  after  two  and  a 
half  years  have  passed.  Canada,  to  the  ever- 
lasting credit  of  her  people,  has  produced  four 
hundred  thousand  soldiers;  but  this  has  been 
done  largely  by  individuals  and  by  individualis- 
tic methods.  Consider  the  lethargy  of  Cana- 
dian universities,  which  have  done  little  or 
nothing  collectively  save  the  raising  of  the  uni- 
versity battalions.  Consider  the  failure  of  our 
agricultural  colleges  to  assume  any  distinctive 
leadership  in  a  campaign  of  accelerated  pro- 


AMERICAATWAR  83 

duction.  This  is  not  meant  by  way  of  attack. 
Vast  numbers,  great  wealth,  matured  national 
feeling"  create  a  momentum  here  that  we  can- 
not hope  yet  to  vie  with.  But  judging  from 
the  case  of  America,  the  imperative  gospel  for 
the  Canada  of  the  next  twenty-five  years  is  the 
conception  and  direction  of  virtually  everything 
in  national  terms. 

Two  little  details  I  add :  Washington  hotels 
are  ** crammed  to  the  roofs."  After  trying  in 
vain  the  Shoreham  and  two  others  I  desisted 
with  cheerful  philosophy  and  started  for  the 
Central  Presbyterian  church  to  get  a  glimpse 
of  the  President.  Entering  the  vestibule  I 
whispered  naively  to  an  usher:  *^Is  this  the 
President's  church T'  ^^This  is  the  church  the 
President  attends,''  came  the  equally  whispered 
adjustment.  I  smiled  to  myself  as  I  recalled 
the  story  of  the  lady  who  irately  left  Trinity 
church,  Boston,  on  one  occasion  when  she  found 
that  Phillips  Brooks  was  not  in  his  pulpit. 
*^The  worship  of  the  Rev.  Phillips  Brooks  will 
be  continued  next  Sunday  evening,  madam," 
remarked  the  usher. 

On  my  way  back  to  dinner  I  passed  the  Span- 
ish and  the  Russian  embassies.  I  asked  a  man 
where  the  German  embassy  was.  He  pointed  in 
a  certain  direction,  and  then  added  playfully, 
and  I  fancied  very  contentedly,  *^It  is  closed 
for  the  holidays — and  then  some." 


IV 


PRESS  AND  PULPIT  FUSING  PUBLIC   OPINION 

Washington,  D.  C,  April  17th, 

IT  is  my  business  to  assist  in  providing  the 
readers  of  the  Free  Press  with  the  mate- 
rials for  a  reasoned  judgment  on  the  condition 
of  American  opinion  at  this  highly  interesting 
time.  Two  agencies  of  moment  at  such  a  time 
are  the  pulpit  and  the  press.  As  for  the  press 
it  is  oversvhelmingly  bombarding  the  country, 
east  and  west,  north  and  south.  The  press  is 
even  in  advance  of  opinion,  as  for  example  on 
the  superiority  of  compulsory  service  to  volun- 
tary enlistment.  I  have  bought  and  read  pa- 
pers now  with  assiduity  in  seven  cities  repre- 
senting both  parties  in  Minnesota,  "Wisconsin, 
Illinois,  Pennsylvania,  Maryland,  the  District 
of  Columbia,  and  New  York.  There  is  virtually 
one  voice  from  all  these.  They  are  in  favour 
of  compulsory  service  according  to  the  Presi- 
dent's plan  of  selective  drafts. 

In  connection  with  the  pulpit,  Winnipeggers 
and  western  Canadians  generally  will  be 
pleased  to  know  that  J.  L.  Gordon  is  sweeping 
the  decks  here  at  Washington.     I  heard  him 

34 


AMERICAATWAR  35 

Sunday  night  in  the  First  Congregational 
church  addressing  a  state  delegation  of  the 
Daughters  of  the  American  Revolution  on 
**The  Supreme  Crisis."  The  church  seats 
about  twelve  hundred,  but  there  were  at  least 
sixteen  hundred  present.  Every  nook  and 
cranny  of  the  building  was  crowded.  I  myself 
sat  on  the  steps  leading  to  the  platform.  He 
spoke  like  a  man  possessed.  His  sermon  was 
a  powerful  histrionic  display.  What  is  more, 
it  was  a  rattling  recruiting  speech.  The  gal- 
leries were  heavily  hung  with  American  flags, 
and  a  few  feet  over  the  speaker  ^s  head  floated 
Old  Glory.  The  meeting  began  with  an  impres- 
sive solo  rendering  of  Kipling ^s  Recessional, 
which  seemed  to  evoke  a  sort  of  fundamental 
Anglo-Saxon  feeling.  Gordon  swept  every 
chord  of  American  patriotic  sentiment  in  his 
audience.  The  sermon  was  punctuated  with 
salvo  after  salvo  of  applause. 

There  were,  he  said,  three  great  dates  in 
American  history:  **1620  when  you  planted 
your  feet  on  this  new  soil;  1776  when  you  un- 
furled a  new  flag  beneath  the  sky;  1917  when 
you  will  not  prove  unworthy  of  the  continent 
or  of  the  flag."  The  American  people  has 
endured  insult  after  insult,  outrage  after  out- 
rage at  the  hands  of  Germany.  They  have 
waited  before  entering  the  war  till  every  culprit 
on  the  earth  is  left  without  excuse.     To-day 


36  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

America  takes  its  place  truly  among  the  world 
powers.  After  tlie  undivided  vote  on  Satur- 
day for  the  seven  billion  dollar  loan  for  the 
prosecution  of  the  war,  every  congressman  of 
the  United  States  has  a  world  status.  *^  Thank 
God  for  Woodrow  Wilson.  Yonder  he  sits  in 
the  Executive  Mansion  planning  for  the  imme- 
diate present  and  peering  into  the  future. 
Eveiy  word  that  he  now  utters  shows  that  he 
has  caught  a  vision.''  America  enters  the  war 
for  the  freedom  of  the  seas.  Germany  has  bid 
our  ships  skulk  in  our  ports.  **  Please  God  that 
will  never  happen  again,  if  we  have  to  sink 
every  submarine  ever  built.''  (Applause). 
America  enters  the  war  for  international  law. 
^*We  ask  that  Kaiser  and  Crown  Prince  be 
swept  from  the  throne."  (Applause).  We 
fight  against  Brute  Force.  *' Prussia  is  an  in- 
ternational burglar."  We  shall  fight  to  save 
''the  soul"  of  Germany.  We  fight  for  Universal 
Democracy.  We  fight  for  Peace,  ''the  greatest 
paradox  in  history. "  "  The  meanest  thing  that 
ever  crawled  up  out  of  hell  is  war.  Let  us  drive 
it  back  where  it  com.es  from.  Let  your  boys 
go  to  the  British  Isles,  to  France,  and  to  Flan- 
ders. The  sooner  they  get  there,  the  sooner 
the  job  will  be  done."  Canadians  could  ask 
for  nothing  better. 

As  I  circled  round  the  Wliite  House  in  my 
first   inspection   of  Washington,   my  eye  was 


AMERICAATWAR  37 

resting  on  the  giant  obelisk  to  the  south. 
^^What  is  that!"  I  said  to  two  men  who  over- 
took me.  They  almost  gasped.  *'What  is 
what?"  The  thing  was  so  fundamental  to  them 
that  they  couldn't  believe  there  could  be  any 
one  who  did  not  know.  *^Why  that's  Wash- 
ington's Monument — the  Father  of  his  coun- 
try, you  know."  *^0h,  I  know  him  by  reputa- 
tion, but  I'm  not  an  American."  ** Where  do 
you  come  from?"  ^^From  Winnipeg."  *^0h, 
that's  England — no,  Canada;  but  then  that's 
England,  isn't  it?"  ^^ Anyway  we're  in  the 
same  boat  now,"  I  volunteered.  '^Mighty  glad 
we  are,  sir,  mighty  glad  we  are.  You'll  get  a 
warm  welcome  here  now."  This  undistin- 
guished, average  American  moved  on,  happy 
and  kindly. 

Fifteen  minutes  later  I  was  on  the  north  side 
of  the  White  House — that  plain  old  mansion 
of  the  chief  magistrate  before  which  the  street- 
cars run  as  if  with  a  sort  of  insistence  on  the 
right  of  democratic  access.  I  had  examined 
the  statues  of  Lafayette,  Eochambeau,  and  the 
Baron  von  Steuben,  and  at  last,  on  the  fourth 
corner,  I  was  studying  the  monument  to  Kos- 
ciusko, presented  to  congress  by  the  Poles  of 
America.  *^I  didn't  know  that  Kosciusko  had 
been  in  America,"  I  said  to  two  young  men 
standing  on  the  corner.  One  was  a  handsome, 
well  set-up  fellow,  the  other  looked  a  little 


38  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

broken  and  faded.  ** Really  I  don't  know,  wh9 
was  he  anyhow  T'  the  first  said.  ^'What  do  you 
think  about  tlie  warT'  I  asked.  Pause. 
*' Neutral,"  suggested  the  weaker  looking  man. 
**No,  not  neutral  by  any  means,  but — inactive," 
said  the  first.  ^^Are  you  glad  you're  in?"  I 
queried.  ^'AMiat  else  could  we  do!  It's  just 
the  same  as  if  your  neighbour  told  you  you 
mustn't  use  the  street.  Of  course  if  you  take 
his  word  for  it,  you'll  have  to  stay  in  the 
house.  But  we  don't  think  we  have  to.  By  the 
way,  where  did  you  buy  that  hat?"  He  looked 
crestfallen  when  I  told  him  it  had  been  bought 
in  Winnipeg.  '*But  Kosciusko — I  don't  under- 
stand. I  didn't  know  he  had  come  to  Amer- 
ica." **Well,"  said  the  well-dressed,  well  built 
young  man,  *'I'm  sorry  that  you  didn't  buy 
that  hat  in  Washington,  because  if  you  had  I'd 
go  and  buy  one  like  it."  As  the  two  moved  away 
this  reflection  leaped  into  my  mind:  That 
young  man  represents  the  class  of  young  Amer- 
ica that  should  be  caught  by  Selective  Draft. 
His  mind  is  fully  convinced.  He  is  in  tip-top 
physical  condition,  probably.  Equally  prob- 
ably he  is  not  a  primary  producer.  He  is  likely 
to  side-step  service  if  left  to  himself.  He  would 
accept  service  if  the  nation  imposed  it.  Left 
to  his  rather  butterfly,  but  by  no  means  ignoble, 
self,  his  place  would  quite  possibly  be  taken  at 


AMERICAATWAR  39 

tlie  front  by  some  grimy  artisan  whose  work  is 
essential,  or  by  some  sturdy  yeoman  from  the 
plains  whose  labour  may  be  necessary  to  feed, 
not  simply  this  nation,  but  the  world. 


V 


WAE  FEELING  IN  CONGEESS 

Wasliingtoyij  D.  C,  April  18th, 
T^LAGS  flutter  more  and  more  thickly  in 
-^  Washing-ton  as  the  days  pass.  To-night 
for  the  first  time  the  dining  room  of  the  Ebbitt 
House  is  draped  with  them.  Outside  they  float 
in  profusion  on  the  roofs  of  buildings,  from  the 
windows  of  shops,  on  automobiles,  motor 
cycles,  and  bicycles,  over  the  heads  of  police- 
men directing  traffic  at  the  intersection  of 
streets. 

I  never  in  my  life  saw  s.uch  hea\'y  eating  as 
is  done  in  American  hotels.  The  mountains  of 
food  set  before  men,  women  and  children  beat 
everything  in  'my  experience.  The  other  night 
I  saw  a  man  weighing  two  hundred  and  fifty 
pounds  if  he  weighed  an  ounce,  ordering  and 
eating  endlessly  in  company  with  a  boy,  evi- 
dently his  son.  The  man  was  about  in  the  class 
of  Dick  Burden,  many  years  ago  of  *^  bill-pos- 
ter'' fame  in  Winnipeg.  I  thought  it  was  a 
gross  exhibition.  I  said  to  myself,  there  is 
degenerate  middle-age  America  teaching  young 
America  to  be  degenerate.     I  had  no  doubt 

40 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  41 

I  had  hit  the  nail  exactly  on  the  head. 
The  next  evening  I  passed  the  same  man  in 
the  rotunda  of  the  hotel,  and  as  I  passed  him 
I  heard  him  say  to  a  friend,  ^^I'm  here  to 
break  into  that  mosquito  fleet.''  Then  I  realised 
that  I  had  been  too  quick  in  my  judgment,  and 
into  my  mind,  to  my  own  disadvantage,  came 
Wordsworth's  words  about  **rash  judgments 
and  the  sneers  of  thoughtless  men." 

The  greatest  reticence  is  being  observed  with 
regard  to  the  arrival  of  Mr.  Balfour  and  his 
party.  This  morning,  w^ith  the  newspapers 
confidently  announcing  his  advent  for  to-day 
and  his  reception  at  the  White  House  to-mor- 
row by  the  President,  the  British  embassy  was 
completely  in  the  dark  as  to  when  he  would 
land  on  American  soil,  even  as  to  whether  he 
would  disembark  at  an  American  or  a  Canadian 
port.  The  recollection  of  the  Kitchener  trag- 
edy is  a  potent  incentive  to  silence.  In  this 
connection  Canadian  observers  need  not  be 
chagrined  if  more  eclat  attaches  to  Joffre's 
entrance  into  America  than  to  Balfour's. 
The  French  mission  is  designed  for  legitimately 
sentimental  purposes.  It  is  expected  to  con- 
sist of  a  very  small  party.  The  British  mis- 
sion will  devote  itself  to  work  and  it  is  believed 
that  it  may  have  a  personnel  of  from  forty  to 
fifty.  The  British  policy  is  to  *^saw  wood," 
but  to  indulge  in  as  little  publicity  as  possible, 


42  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

so  as  not  to  give  tongue  to  factious  elements 
who  might  raise  a  cry  of  ^'British  direction'* 
of  American  policy.  On  the  whole  I  am  much 
pleased  witli  the  tone  of  references  here  to 
Great  Britain.  The  dominant  note  is  that  of 
respect  for  the  straightforwardness  of  British 
diplomacy  and  for  British  power  and  farsight- 
edness. The  New  York  Tribune  in  a  masterly 
two-column  leader  this  morning  says :  **  We  are 
now  entering  the  British  period  of  the  war.'* 

To-day  I  spent  six  hours  in  the  Press  gal- 
lery of  the  senate.  Before  covering  that  I  may 
allude  to  my  first  glimpses  of  the  Houses,  got 
yesterday  from  the  ordinary  galleries.  Abso- 
lutely the  first  figure  that  caught  my  eye  in 
the  senate  was  Henry  Cabot  Lodge.  I  was 
familiar  with  his  appearance  because  in  1911 
in  Boston  I  heard  him  give  in  the  Symphony 
hall  w^hat  w^as  the  finest  political  speech  I  ever 
heard.  He  has  a  neat,  trim,  self-reliant  figure, 
and  moves  freely  about  the  chamber  with  a 
sort  of  dean-like  nonchalance.  On  the  occasion 
of  this,  my  first  experience  of  the  American 
Senate,  Owen,  of  Oklahoma,  delivered  a  speech 
marked  by  a  well-informed  review  of  European 
diplomacy,  and  by  a  fiery  denunciation  of  Prus- 
sian militarism,  the  Divine-right  theory  of  the 
Hohenzollerns,  and  Prussian  dragooning  of 
Germany  at  large.  He  made  favourable  ref- 
erence to  Great  Britain  in  1822,  *  *  already  then 


AMERICAATWAR  43 

a  great  nation  exemplifying  representative  gov- 
ernment and  loving  liberty/^  opposing  the  Holy 
Alliance  in  its  designs  against  democracy.  He 
said  the  statue  of  Frederick,  *^  so-called  the 
Great,''  now  standing  in  front  of  the  American 
war  college,  *^  should  be  gently  but  firmly 
dropped  into  the  Potomac.''  He  estimated  the 
number  of  American  lives  wilfully  taken  by 
Germany  since  the  outbreak  of  the  war  at  about 
two  hundred,  and  the  number  of  neutral  ships 
destroyed  by  the  same  power  at  over  seven 
hundred. 

Emerging  from  the  House  of  Eepresentatives 
I  met  and  had  a  most  agreeable  chat  with 
Representative  Temple,  of  Illinois.  He  was 
formerly  Professor  of  Diplomatic  History  in 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  and  is  now  a 
member  of  the  Foreign  Relations  committee 
of  the  House.  He  explained  to  me  the  proposed 
provisions  of  the  army  bill  which  is  still  in 
committee.  ** Canada,"  he  said,  **has  raised 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  400,000  men.  That 
means  one-twentieth  of  your  population  or  five 
per  cent.  Five  per  cent,  of  our  100,000,000 
would  give  us  an  army  of  5,000,000.  There  is 
no  proposal  at  present  to  raise  any  such  num- 
ber." The  President's  proposals  fall  into 
three  groups,  (a)  To  bring  the  regular  army 
plus  the  state  militia,  now  nationalised,  up  to 
a  war  footing  of  500,000  by  voluntary  enlist- 


44  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

mcnt;  (b)  iicational  registration  of  all  eligible 
males;  (c)  from  the  resources  disclosed  by  this 
to  raise  successive  units  of  500,000  each,  as 
they  may  be  needed,  and  as  they  can  be  trained. 
The  instruction  of  a  larger  force  at  the  moment 
would  threaten  to  denude  the  regular  army  of 
its  officers.  He  said  the  proposal  had  been 
voiced  in  some  quarters  that  America  should 
fight  with  money,  but,  said  he,  *Hhat  proposal 
found  no  response  in  the  House.  It  is  nothing 
other  than  the  liberty  of  the  world  that  is  at- 
tacked, particularly  by  submarining.  We  can- 
not w^age  such  a  war  by  proxy.  I  feel  for  my 
own  part,  that  I  never  could  hold  up  my  head 
in  Canada,  in  England,  or  in  any  other  foreign 
country,  if  we  had  taken  such  a  position." 

Now,  I  find  my  space  gone  and  I  have  not 
covered  the  great  debate  of  to-day  on  the  seven 
billion  dollar  bill  for  the  prosecution  of  the 
war.  The  Canadian  public  knows  long  before 
this  that  the  debate  ended  with  the  unanimous 
passage  of  the  bill.  Here  I  shall  simply  quote 
a  few  of  the  outstanding  sentences  pronounced 
in  part  by  those  not  supporting  the  bill  in  all 
particulars,  but  who  nevertheless  voted  for  it. 
Kellogg,  the  famous  ^^rust-busting"  lawyer, 
of  Minnesota,  supporting  the  bill,  said :  *^  There 
is  no  safety  for  America  until  the  Prussian 
dynasty  is  driven  from  power."  Stone  of  Mis- 
souri, Democratic  chairman  of  the  committee 


AMERICAATWAR  45 

on  foreign  relations,  made  a  shrewd  cover- 
hunting  speech  in  which  he  argued  that  a  larger 
share  of  the  first  yea-r's  expenses  of  ther  war 
than  was  proposed  by  the  bill  should  be  paid 
out  of  current  taxation.  **Pay  as  you  enter 
and  pay  as  you  go  is  sound  policy.  Wiser  to 
pay  current  liabilities  of  war  by  taxation  of 
wealth  than  transmit  burden  to  industry  of 
future  generations  who  have  no  say  in  deter- 
mining present  policy.''  Thomas,  of  Colorado, 
approved  this :  *  ^  One  way  to  make  the  people 
hate  war  is  to  make  the  present  generation  pay 
•as  it  goes."  Sliafroth,  of  Colorado:  ^^Expen.- 
diture  great,  but  world  results  of  winning  the 
war  will  warrant  us  in  what  we  are  doing." 
Cummins,  of  Iowa:  **I  would  rather  make  a 
gift  than  a  loan  to  the  allies.  Apprehend  dan- 
ger in  the  United  States  becoming  bondhold- 
ing  creditor  of  the  allies."  McCumber,  of 
North  Dakota:  ^^We  have  not  yet  put  a  man 
in  the  field.  We  should  be  very  liberal  with  our 
money."  Kenyon,  of  Iowa,  who  paid  a  great 
tribute  to  France :  ^'This  bill  carries  a  message 
to  the  kaiser  that  the  mighty  republic  of  the  west 
is  opposed  to  him  to  the  death."  Reed  Smoot,  of 
Utah,  supporting  the  bill  unreservedly,  said: 
'^If  the  president  saw  fit  to  advance  a  billion  to 
Russia,  without  any  prospect  of  return,  I  should 
be  glad  to  see  it  done  if  it  would  substitute  a 
republic  for  autocracy  in  that  country. ' ' 


VI 


THE   BRITISH   AMBASSADOR — A   DAY   IN   THE   SENATE 

Washington,  D.  C,  April  19th, 
INTRODUCTIONS  from  Sir  James  Aikins 
-■•  and  from  Premier  Norris  were  to  thank 
this  morning  for  a  charming  interview  with  His 
Excellency  Sir  Cecil  Spring  Rice,  British  Am- 
bassador at  Washing-ton.  He  in  turn  was  good 
enough-  to  accord  me  introductions  to  Ambas- 
sador Jusserajid  and  Senator  Heniy  Cabot 
Lodge.  He  complimented  the  Free  Press  on 
its  action  in  sending  a  representative  to  Wash- 
ington. The  ambassador  referred  cordially  to 
happy  days  he  had  spent  in  the  Canadian 
Northwest.  On  the  mantel-piece  were  two 
photographs  of  His  Excellency's  brother,  who 
resided  at  Pense,  Saskatchewan,  and  who  fell 
in  France  a  year  ago.  The  ambassador  alluded 
to  a  tablet  which  is  shortly  to  be  put  in  posi- 
tion in  that  place  in  his  brother's  memory.  He 
said  he  should  like  very  much  to  go  to  Pense 
on  that  occasion  but  that  the  eight  days  neces- 
sary would  be  very  difficult  to  find  in  these  criti- 
cal times.  He  alluded  to  the  special  keenness 
with  which  His  Excellency  the  Duke  of  Devon- 

46 


AMERIC[A.ATWAR  47 

shire  had  enjoyed  his  recent  western  visit.  He 
said  the  governor-general  had  been  deeply  im- 
pressed with  the  vitality  and  capacity  of  West- 
ern Canadian  life. 

I  find  that  the  tone  of  comment  on  the  line 
of  action  adopted  by  the  embassy  in  this  conn- 
try  since  the  outbreak  of  the  war  is  very  favour- 
able. The  policy  of  leaving  the  American  peo- 
ple strictly  to  make  up  its  own  mind  on  the 
war  in  its  own  way,  is  now  seen  to  have  been 
excellently  conceived. 

The  state  of  war  now  existing  here  has  pro- 
duced a  condition  of  heightened  public  feeling 
that  is  finding  its  reflection,  in  the  senate  at 
any  rate,  in  a  series  of  powerful  debates.  I 
have  already  adverted  in  despatches  to  the 
powerful  speech  delivered  by  Borah,  of  Idaho, 
on  the  censorship  sections  of  the  Espionage 
Bill.  Borah  is  spoken  of  as  the  most  formi- 
dable debater  in  the  senate.  His  speech  on  this 
occasion  was  evidently  looked  forward  to,  and 
it  proved  fully  worthy  of  expectations.  It  was 
listened  to  with  closer  interest  than  any  other 
speech  I  have  yet  heard  here.  It  amounted  to 
a  root  and  branch  attack  on  censorship.  He 
claimed  that  with  evident  design  the  framers 
of  the  constitution  had  denied  the  right  of  the 
legislature  under  any  circumstances  to  abridge 
the  power  of  the  press.  The  sections  under 
fire,  he  said,  involved  the  creation  of  a  licensing 


48  AMERICAATWAR 

power  which  must  be  consulted  before  publica- 
tion. The  Avliole  spirit  of  tlie  constitutional 
provision  is  that  the  press  must  be  left  to  its 
own  sense  of  responsibility.  After  publication 
it  can  be  proceeded  against  for  sedition  or 
treason  without  the  aid  of  a  new  statute. 

Thus  far  in  the  debate  the  spokesmen  for  the 
administration's  provisions  have  been  out- 
pointed all  along  the  line.  Brandegee,  Lodge, 
Johnson,  Borah  have  so  far  in  tliis  connection 
met  no  adequate  antagonists.  Riglit  of  publi- 
cation, said  Borah,  in  the  view  of  the  constitu- 
tion, is  to  be  left  unrestrained,  subject  to  the 
sole  and  sufficient  liability  of  the  publisher  to 
appropriate  punishment.  *'The  dangers  of 
possible  aid  to  the  enemy  even  are  not  com- 
mensurate with  the  dangers  flowing  from  cur- 
tailment of  the  rights  of  the  press.''  Inciden- 
tally I  may  interject  that  the  New  York  Times, 
of  this  morning  under  the  caption,  ^*A  Tyran- 
nous Measure,"  suggests  that  the  full  end 
sought  may  be  attained  by  proper  control  of 
the  cables.  Even  more  powerfully  than  Lodge 
yesterday,  Borah  alluded  to  the  achievements 
of  the  Northcliffe  Press  during  the  war.  ^^Has 
there  been,  I  ask  you,  a  more  distinct  service 
rendered  to  British  arms  than  that  rendered 
by  the  Northcliffe  Press,  whose  strictures  could 
not  have  been  published  under  provisions  of 
this  statute  r' 


AMERICAATWAR  49 

A  response  from  the  other  side,  not  adequate 
in  force  hut  entitled  to  respect,  was  made  by 
Knute  Nelson,  a  senator  of  Norwegian  birth 
from  Minnesota.  He  fought  in  the  Civil  War 
and  alluded  with  splendid  effect  to  incidents  of 
that  struggle.  *^He  was  more  concerned  about 
the  safety  of  our  soldiers  and  sailors  than  with 
the  supposed  interests  of  newsmongers.''  In 
the  Civil  War  the  northern  armies  had  been 
again  and  again  prejudiced  by  publicity  as  to 
movements.  Before  they  knew  it  what  they 
were  about  to  do  was  known  at  Richmond. 
Here,  I  thought,  was  a  delicate  situation.  The 
Minnesota  senator  righted  it  instantly,  how- 
ever, by  adding:  ^^And  the  Confederate  arm- 
ies suffered  in  the  same  way,  as  I  have  been 
told  by  citizens  of  the  south."  This  passage 
was  a  fine  tribute  to  the  completeness  with 
which  that  great  national  wound  has  been 
healed.  The  senator's  argument  in  essence  was 
that  war  power  confers  police  power.  The  con- 
stitutional guarantees  of  ftee  speech  and  publi- 
cation are  subrogated  in  time  of  war.  Repub- 
lican as  he  is,  he  said  he  was  fully  prepared  to 
trust  the  President,  who  would  not  use  his  pow- 
ers tyrannously.  There  was  a  certain  home- 
spun air  about  the  Minnesota  senator's  argu- 
ment that  made  it  very  attractive;  and  above 
all  it  was  worthy  of  resx>ect  as  an  expression  of 


50  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

the  best  type  of  genuinely  Americanised  Euro- 
peanism. 

Johnson,  of  California,  to  whom  special  in- 
terest attaches  because  of  his  career  and  be- 
cause of  his  recent  accession  to  the  Republican 
caucus,  intervened  with  a  short  but  admirably 
phrased  address  against  the  bill.  *'He  was 
concerned  not  with  the  press,  but  with  freedom 
of  speech.  This  war  is  not  a  partisan  war,  but 
a  war  of  all  America.  America  is  the  light  of 
the  world  in  democracy.  We  must  stop  short 
of  an  assault  on  fundamental  democracy.  To 
make  felons  of  our  citizens  is  an  excursion  into 
autocracy  that  cannot  be  permitted.^'  The  ex- 
pectation is  that  Johnson  will  prove  a  great 
accession  to  the  debating  power  of  the  senate. 

I  add  a  paragraph  in  order  to  record  a  com- 
ment of  unusual  interest.  I  have  been  strongly 
impressed  with  the  consciousness  of  a  great 
tradition  observable  in  the  American  senate. 
Commenting  to  this  effect  to  a  representative 
of  a,  leading  New  York  paper,  he  rejoined; 
*^No,  its  back  is  broken.  The  starch  has  gone 
out  of  it.  Even  as  late  as  McKinley's  time 
ready-made  legislation  handed  to  the  senate  by 
the  administration  would  have  been  flung  in  the 
waste-paper  basket.  To-day  all  the  big  bills  are 
handed  to  the  Houses,  ready-made.  Roosevelt 
began  the  process  of  breaking  down  the 
Houses.    The  reason  lay  in  the  development  of 


AMERICAATWAR  51 

national  feeling  of  which  Roosevelt  knew  him- 
self to  be  the  organ.  This  breaking-down  has 
been  carried  still  farther  by  the  present  saga- 
cious occupant  of  the  White  House.''  This 
comment,  any  one  can  see,^  is  extraordinarily 
interesting  as  concerning  a  phenomenon,  which, 
in  the  light  of  British  practice,  we  should  be 
disposed  to  regard  as  ensuing  from  an  unwise 
separation  of  the  executive  and  the  legislative 
functions. 

While  admitting  that  profound  changes  are 
in  progress,  I  cannot  agree  that  the  senate  has 
by  any  means  lost  its  great  traditions.  I  have 
now  heard  well  on  to  half  the  members  of  the 
senate.  I  have  not  yet  heard  one  poor  speech 
of  a  substantive  character.  One  man  in  the 
back  row  I  may  allude  to.  I  might  designate 
him  by  name,  but  it  is  not  necessary.  Through 
three  days  I  saw  him  sit  like  a  man  who  might 
have  one  foot  in  the  grave.  To-day  on  the 
Espionage  bill,  he  rose  to  a  high  and  grave 
defence  of  the  bill.  * '  The  general  terms  of  the 
constitution  must  be  interpreted  in  light  of  the 
exigencies  of  society  under  hazardous  condi- 
tions." He  cited'  with  fine  effect  Marshall's 
**It  is  a  constitution  we  are  interpreting."  The 
senate  may  be  less  masterful  in  action  than  it 
once  was.  Of  that  I  am  not  competent  to  speak ; 
but  it  is  still  at  any  rate  impressive  in  debate 


VII 


SOME  PUBLIC   MEN   IN  ACTION 

Washington,  D.  C,  April  20th. 
T  SAW  a  number  of  persons  and  things  in 
-*■  action  to-day  for  the  first  time.  To  begin 
wdth,  the  President  himself.  Of  him  I  caught 
my  initial  sight  in  the  Chief  Executive's  room 
adjoining  the  senate  lobby.  He  is  a  man  of 
shorter  figure,  stockier  build  and  higher  colour 
than  I  had  supposed.  He  had  come  to  the 
capitol  to  speed  up  the  administration's  army 
bill.  The  House  military  committee,  by  the 
way,  was  simultaneously  rejecting  the  selective 
draft  scheme  proposed  by  the  President  and 
the  Secretary  of  State  for  war.  By  a  vote  of 
12  to  8  it  expressed  a  preference  for  trying  the 
volunteer  system  first.  At  the  time  that  I  saw 
Mr.  Wilson  he  was  closely  engaged  in  conversa- 
tion with  Senator  Owen,  of  Oklahoma.  Bear- 
ing in  mind  the  constitutional  separation  be- 
tween executive  and  legislative  functions  in  the 
American  system,  there  is  something  extremely 
interesting  to  a  British  observer  in  this  contact 
between  the  chief  magistrate  and  the  legisla- 
tors in  rooms  adjoining  the  chambers.     There 


AM.ERICA    AT    WAR  53 

is  plenty  of  bone  in  President  Wilson's  control 
of  the  national  machine.  He  holds  a  tight  rein. 
It'  is  apparent  on  all  hands  that  the  prestige 
of  Mr.  Wilson  has  latterly  been  greatly  en- 
hanced.   The  causes  are  not  far  to  seek. 

First,  there  was  his  re-election  with  a  large 
popular  majority,  an  event  which  accrued  the 
more  notably  to  his  advantage  because  he  was 
for  a  time  supposed  to  be  in  jeopardy.  Then 
came  the  declaration  of  the  state  of  war,  which 
was  unquestionably  a  great  relief  to  the  lead- 
ing elements  of  the  nation.  Finally,  there  is 
the  formidable  concentration  of  power  in  his 
person  inevitable  under  war  conditions.  An  il- 
lustration of  this  last  is  found  in  the  bill  on 
espionage  and  related  matters  now  under  ad- 
visement in  both  chambers.  This  bill,  as  drawn, 
confers  on  the  President  powers  the  enumera- 
tion of  which  almost  takes  one's  breath  away. 

Next,  to-day  for  the  first  time,  I  saw  Henry 
Cabot  Lodge,  easily  the  most  highly  cultivated 
man  in  the  two  branches  of  congress,  in  action 
in  the  senate.  Readers  of  this  column  will  re- 
member that  Root,  the  only  man  in  point  of 
intellectual  cultivation  in  the  late  congress  who 
could  be  named  in  the  same  breath  with  Lodge, 
is  no  longer  in  the  senate.  The  interval  be- 
tween the  rawest  representative  in  the  lower 
house  and  Lodge,  the  dean  of  the  senate  and  the 
fine  flow^er  of  the  best  New  England  tradition, 


64  AMERICAATWAR 

is  immense.  If  you  run  up  the  line  from  the 
one  to  the  other  of  these  two  extremes  the  view 
you  get  of  the  forces  operating  in  a  grand 
democratic  state  is  picturesque  and  peculiarly 
vital.  Lodge's  acute,  intellectualised,  high-bred 
face  is  a  fine  study.  He  seems  marked  by  a 
fine  personal  courtesy  that  still  does  not  ex- 
clude ever  and  anon  flashes  of  incisive  anger. 
He  is  as  quick  as  chain  lightning.  In  no  mat- 
ter what  part  of  the  chamber  he  is  strolling 
nonchalantly — his  hands  more  often  than  not 
thrust  deep  in  his  pockets — he  grows  alert  in 
an  instant  the  moment  a  word  is  dropped  on 
any  subject  in  w^hich  he  specialises. 

To-day  Senator  Lodge  was  taking  exception 
to  the  drastic  terms  of  certain  sections  of  the 
espionage  bill.  The  gravamen  of  his  attack 
was  that  the  recently  created  censorship  board 
was  wrongly  constituted.  Under  the  chairman- 
ship of  a  journalist  it  consists  of  the  secretaries 
of  the  army  and  the  navy,  precisely  the  officials, 
contended  Lodge,  whose  administration  should 
be  vitalised  by  as  full  a  criticism  as  is  com- 
patible with  the  national  interest.  He  cited  as 
proof  of  what  England  permitted  in  war  time 
the  free  criticism  of  the  Northcliffe  papers 
which  had  been  the  means  of  ousting  officials 
and  unseating  governments.  There  was  some- 
thing undeniably  appropriate  in  the  spectacle 
of  this  choice  scion  of  New  England  champion- 


AMERICAATWAR  55 

ing  the  cause  of  free  discussion.  In  the  fine 
continuity  of  Anglo-Saxon  traditions  this  scene 
in  the  American  senate  in  1917  ran  straight 
back  to  the  noble  '^Areopagitica"  of  John  Mil- 
ton. 

Brandegee,  of  Connecticut,  followed  the 
senior  senator  from  Massachusetts  on  similar 
lines.  He  contended  that  one  clause  of  the  es- 
pionage bill  in  particular  was  at  variance  with 
the  provisions  in  the  constitution  safeguarding 
freedom  of  speech.  He  made  a  very  powerful 
and  rightly  ingratiating  argument.  I  shall  be 
surprised  if  I  do  not  find  that  Brandegee  has 
one  of  the  best  parliamentary  manners  in  the 
senate.  Hiram  Johnson,  the  California  Pro- 
gressive, who,  by  the  way,  yesterday  joined  the 
Eepublican  caucus,  intervened  in  the  midst  of 
Brandegee 's  speech — this  habit  of  free  inter- 
polation is  one  of  the  most  interesting  manner- 
isms of  Congress — to  say:  **Let  us  be  careful 
that  in  our  sensibility  to  the  progress  of  democ- 
racy abroad  we  do  not  forget  to  safeguard 
democracy  at  home.''  Judging  by  the  impres- 
sive speeches  in  criticism  of  this  bill,  of  which 
the  three  I  have  cited  were  simply  the  most 
eminent,  I  imagine  the  bill  will  emerge  from  the 
senate  with  its  fangs  somewhat  drawn. 

Then,  to-day  I  got  my  first  real  view  of  the 
House  of  Eepresentatives.  The  bill  under  dis- 
cussion, and  which  passed  triumphantly,  was 


66  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

(mo  to  permit  tlio  allied  nations  to  recruit  their 
nationals  within  the  bounds  of  the  United 
States.  It  was  said  in  the  course  of  the  debate 
that  there  are  four  hundred  thousand  citizens 
of  the  allied  nations  in  this  country.  The  num- 
ber seems  modest,  particularly  when  one  re- 
calls the  high  figure  at  which  German  citizens  in 
America  are  placed.  Woehlke,  in  the  article 
in  the  Century,  to  which  I  have  already  al- 
luded in  this  correspondence,  puts  the  number 
of  these  at  one  million.  A  seasoned  journalist 
told  me  to-day  that  the  last  census  put  them  at 
two  million;  but  I  rather  fancy  the  German 
writer  is  more  nearly  correct.  Incidentally  it 
may  be  pointed  out  that  if  the  allies  avail  them- 
selves of  the  privilege  accorded  them  by  this 
bill,  and  if  allied  nationals  in  this  country  re- 
spond in  large  numbers,  it  might  have  an  im- 
portant influence  on  American  recruiting, 
should  the  administration  be  forced  away  from 
its  policy  of  selective  drafting.  This  may  be 
the  case  in  any  event  because  the  President's 
plan,  as  at  present  proposed,  provides  for  the 
voluntary  enlistment  of  some  seven  hundred 
thousand  men. 

Studying  the  House  one  realises  that  here  one 
is  very  considerably  closer  to  the  raw  citizen- 
ship of  America  than  in  the  case  of  the  senate. 
The  separate  desks  of  the  upper  chamber  here 
give   place   to   long  benches,   with   unallotted 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  57 

seats.  Noise,  hubbub,  crowding  are  the  order 
of  the  day.  A  good  deal  of  the  speaking  is 
of  the  biscuit-box  or  wash-tub  type.  This  with- 
out suggesting  for  a  moment  that  there  are  not 
many  very  able  men  in  the  house.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  I  infer  that  a  fine  sterling  temper  ani- 
mates the  very  great  majority  of  the  members 
of  this  branch  of  Congress. 


VIII 

AMERICANISM  NOW  IN  THE  SADDLE 

Washington,  April  26. 
^T^  0-DAY,  as  I  rode  through  the  streets  of 
^  Washington  in  the  course  of  a  circuit  that 
I  shall  refer  to  later,  I  found  the  flags  of  the 
United  States,  France  and  Britain  intertwined 
or  floating  side  by  side  on  a  fairly  large  num- 
ber of  buildings.  The  motor. in  which  I  was, 
carried  the  three  emblems. 

I  have  been  rather  struck  hitherto  with  the 
absence  from  public  discussions  on  the  war  of 
distinct  references  to  the  common  heritage  pos- 
sessed by  Britons  and  Americans  in  the  matter 
of  language,  literature,  common  law  and  parlia- 
mentary institutions.  There  is  no  lack  of  allu- 
sion to  democracy,  liberty  and  representative 
government,  all  of  which  are  freely  conceded  to 
have  been  imperilled  by  German  designs;  but 
the  common  element  has  not  been  much  dwelt 
upon.  This  note  is  struck  to-day  by  the  Wash- 
ington Times.  It  refers  to  '^the  great  nation 
that  has  financed  the  war,  driven  the  enemy 
from  the  surface  of  the  sea,  fed  and  munitioned 
her  allies,  and  at  length  raised  an  army  that 

68 


AMERICAATWAR  59 

is  smashing  its  way  through  the  German  lines 
with  a  steadiness  and  pluck  and  contempt  of 
death  that  ought  to  send  a  thrill  of  pride 
through  every  man  who  can  boast  of  English 
blood,  who  has  inherited  English  ideals,  or  who 
speaks  the  English  tongue." 

One  can  hardly  overestimate  the  influence 
that  the  war  legislation  which  is  now  engaging 
the  attention  of  Congress  is  bound  to  have  in 
Americanising  the  United  States.  For  the  first 
time  on  a  grand  scale  the  new  America  which 
has  grown  up  since  the  Civil  War  is  being  called 
upon  to  think  and  act  as  a  unit.  The  war  loan 
bill,  which  is  now  virtually  ready  for  the  presi- 
dent's signature,  the  censorshi'p  bill,  which  now 
apparently  promises  to  get  through  more  nearly 
scot-free  than  I  had  thought  possible,  the  army 
and  navy  bills  which  are  on  the  threshold  of 
both  houses,  followed  by  the  revenue  bill  for  the 
imposition  of  war  taxation,  will  be  the  expres- 
sion, as  I  imagine  no  legislation  since  the  Civil 
War  has  been  the  expression,  of  a  triumphant 
national  idea.  Henceforth  irruptions  subver- 
sive of  national  unity  must,  if  they  take  place 
at  all,  be  fitful  and  ineffectual.  An  American 
union,  in  the  words  of  Webster,  ^^one  and  in- 
divisible, now  and  forever, '^  is,  in  all  human 
probability,  from  this  point  forward  an  accom- 
plished fact.  This  is  one  of  the  great  things 
America  will  have  done  for  herself  by  her  deci- 


60  AMERICAATWAR 

sion  to  participate  in  the  great  war.  President 
Wilson,  in  a  letter  to  Representative  Ilelvering, 
published  to-day,  and  designed  no  doubt  further 
to  indicate  his  intention  of  standing  to  his  guns 
in  the  matter  of  selective  conscription,  says: 
''The  bill,  if  adopted,  will  do  more,  I  believe, 
than  any  other  single  instrumentality  to  create 
the  impression  of  universal  service  in  the  army 
and  out  of  it,  and,  if  properly  administered,  will 
be  a  great  source  of  stimulation. '* 

One  can  imagine,  though  one  is  not  disposed 
to  emphasise  the  fact,  that  the  proposal,  made 
by  Mr.  Roosevelt,  and  backed  by  many  in  his 
behalf,  that  he  should  be  permitted  to  recruit 
a  division  for  service  in  Europe,  creates  a  po- 
litical difficulty  for  the  President  as  the  chief 
of  his  party.  It  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  even 
the  administration's  proposals  for  the  raising 
of  an  army  involve  the  voluntary  enlistment  of 
from  six  to  seven  hundred  thousand  men.  The 
enlistments  to  date,  since  the  declaration  of  a 
state  of  war,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  number  only 
some  twelve  thousand.  Roosevelt  himself  to- 
day comes  back  to  the  subject  by  referring  to 
the  fact  that  Gov.  Whitman  has  offered  him  any 
commission  within  the  gift  of  the  state  of  New 
York,  but  he  adds  that  he  would  prefer  a  na- 
tional commission.  Now,  if  Roosevelt  raised  a 
division,  succeeded  in  getting  it  trained,  took  it 
to  Europe,  and  survived  the  campaign,  it  is  in 


AMERICAATWAR  61 

the  mind  of  many  that  that  achievement  would 
elect  him  president  in  1920.  The  solution  that 
will  be  given  to  this  problem  will  certainly  be 
worth  watching  for. 

In  commenting  upon  the  excellence  of  the  cen- 
sorship debate  in  the  senate  I  neglected  to  point 
out  that  the  constitutional  aspects  of  that  ques- 
tion were  admirably  calculated  to  elicit  the 
strong  points  of  that  chamber.  The  American 
senate  is  a  house  of  lawyers.  I  fancy  that  over 
eighty  of  its  ninety-six  members  belong  to  the 
bar.  Reed,  of  Missouri,  who  by  the  way  some- 
what resembles  Premier  Norris  in  appearance, 
was  one  of  the  speakers  in  the  closing  hour 
of  the  debate  this  afternoon.  He  speaks  delib- 
erately with,  ever  and  anon,  a  fine  sweep  of 
gesture.  ^'Let  us  go  forward,''  he  said,  ^^but 
in  going  forward  let  us  keep  within  the  four 
corners  of  the  constitution." 

Introduced  by  a  letter  from  President  Mac- 
Lean,  I  had  the  pleasure  to-day  of  a  chat  with 
Senator  Borah.  He  is  a  man  of  sturdy,  massive 
face  and  figure.  He  said  that  he  was  familiar 
with  the  Free  Press,  and  made  some  very  in- 
teresting remarks  on  the  success  of  responsible 
government  as  worked  out  under  the  British 
system. 

With  Mr.  James  Fisher,  of  Winnipeg,  who 
is  at  the  moment  in  Washington,  I  had  the 
pleasure  to-day  of  a  little  excursion  into  Vir- 


62  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

ginia.  We  wore  the  guests  of  Dr.  Bell,  a  pro- 
fessor in  an  Episcopal  theological  college,  sit- 
uated at  Alexandria,  on  the  southern  side  of 
the  Potomac.  On  the  way  to  the  home  of  Dr. 
and  Mrs.  Bell,  we  passed  and  stopped  at  the 
mansion  of  Gen.  Robert  Lee,  the  great  Con- 
federate leader.  The  house  of  our  host  and 
hostess  stands  in  the  noble  Seminary  park  of 
some  two  hundred  acres  overlooking  the  Poto- 
mac. The  Wliite  House  is  only  seven  miles 
away.  Our  host  told  us  that  Virginia,  which 
has  been  left  untouched  by  foreign  immigra- 
tion, contains  the  purest  English  population  in 
the  United  States.  I  could  not  help  contrasting 
it  in  this  regard  with  the  great  commonwealth 
of  Massachusetts,  which  is  now  aswarm  with 
Americans  of  foreign  extraction.  I  remember 
in  1901  being  for  a  day  at  a  place  in  that  state 
called  Stow.  The  farm  next  the  place  I  was 
visiting  was  owned  by  a  Scandinavian.  Stow 
is  only  a  few  miles  from  the  old  Sudbury  Inn, 
immortalised  by  Longfellow  in  his  *^  Tales  of  a 
Wayside  Inn.''  Plymouth,  the  first  home  of 
the  Pilgrim  fathers,  swarms  with  foreigners. 
The  summer  the  war  broke  out  I  attended  an 
Independence  day  celebration  in  Faneuil  Hall, 
one  of  the  cradles  of  the  American  republic. 
The  chairman  was  the  Irish  mayor  of  Boston. 
The  Declaration  of  Independence  was  read  by 
an  Italian  boy.    The  invocation  was  pronounced 


AMERICAATWAR  63 

by  a  Jewish  rabbi.  The  oration  was  delivered 
by  Father  Freeman,  an  Irish  priest.  But  it  is 
different  in  Virginia.  Dr.  Bell  put  it  this  way : 
**From  the  beginning  of  the  war  America  at 
large  has  been  rather  pro-French  than  pro- 
British.  Virginia,  though,  has  been  steadily 
pro-British  rather  than  pro-French.  The  joy 
of  this  old  English  stock  over  the  satisfactory 
position  of  the  country  to-day  is  greaf  Dr. 
Bell  said  that  the  great  work  of  the  last  two 
and  a  half  years  in  the  United  States  has  been 
a  spontaneous  campaign  of  education  on  the 
issues  and  significance  of  the  war  carried  on  by 
editors,  university  men  and  preachers.  At  last 
the  great  idea  has  infiltrated  the  masses  of  the 
country,  or  at  least  such  a  preponderant  body 
of  them  that  the  situation  is  saved.  I  am 
strictly  reproducing  his  statements  here.  I 
was  struck  by  the  periodicals  lying  on  the 
library  table — the  Fortnightly^  Land  and 
Water,  Punch.  On  the  way  to  Alexandria 
we  rode  past  Fort  Myer,  a  military  post,  desig- 
nated— so  said  Dr.  Bell — to  be  one  of  four- 
teen, located  in  different  parts  of  the  country, 
at  each  of  which  2,500  officers  are  to  be  trained 
for  the  new  American  army. 


IX 


PUBLIC  OPINION  STERN  AGAINST  SEDITION 

Washington,  D.  C,  April  27th. 
"D  Y  tlie  plcasantest  of  accidents  I  came  once 
'^  again  on  the  trail  of  the  big  man  who  was 

''trying  to  break  into  the  mosquito  fleet.*'  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  he  insisted  on  my  going  with 
him  Saturday  night  to  see  David  Warfield  in 
''The  Music  Master.''  I  was  thus  able  to  ques- 
tion him  in  detail  about  his  "mosquito  fleet" 
proposal.  By  now  he  has  learned  that  the  gov- 
ernment will  not  give  him  a  commission  owing 
to  his  health,  but  the  offer  of  his  yacht  has 
been  accepted.  It  is  a  gasoline  yacht  and  has 
a  motor  radius  of  six  hundred  miles.  The  gov- 
ernment pays  him  a  nominal  rental  of  one  dollar 
a  month  to  cover  some  legal  point.  He  says 
that  what  he  called  "the  tightening  up"  of  the 
mosquito  fleet  promises  to  keep  submarining 
off  the  American  coast  in  hand.  The  estuai:ies 
like  Chesapeake  Bay  and  so  on  are  already  in 
a  good  state  of  preparation.  He  is  a  Virginian 
and  a  Quaker. 

Virginia  is  evidently  ' '  fighting  mad. ' '  In  my 
last  message  I  reported  the  temper  of  a  theo- 
logical professor  of  that  state  who  is  a  mem- 

64 


AMERICAATWAR  65 

ber  of  an  old  Virginian  family,  whose  wife  is 
closely  related  to  the  family  of  General  Robert 
Lee,  and  who  says  he  knows  every  inch  of  his 
native  state.  Add  to  this  my  **yachf  man, 
whose  home  is  about  80  miles  from  "Washing- 
ton. Then,  just  as  I  was  going  in  to  dinner  to- 
night, this  happened.  A  group  of  six  boys  of 
about  eighteen  years  or  thereabouts,  stood  chat- 
ting at  the  door.  One,  a  handsome,  soft-voiced 
boy,  was  evidently  slightly  under  the  influence 
of  liquor.  Again  I  heard,  **I'm  going  to  join 
the  mosquito  fleet."  The  similarity  of  the  re- 
mark to  that  of  the  older  man  a  few  nights  ago 
struck  me  and  I  exchanged  some  words  with 
him.  *^I'm  going  to  have  one  more  good  time 
before  I  go.''  He  came  close  to  me  and  said, 
^^I  may  be  dead  in  two  months,  but  I  don't  care 
a  straw  if  I  sink  six  Germans  before  I  go." 
When  I  said  I  was  a  Canadian,  his  voice  soft- 
ened, the  slightly  maudlin  tone  disappeared  and 
he  grasped  my  hand  warmly.  ^^I'm  from  old 
Virginia.  I'm  pained  to  the  heart  that  we 
haven't  done  as  well  as  Canada,  but  we're  going 
to  do  better  now." 

One  of  the  most  notable  things  of  the  mo- 
ment is  the  whole-hearted  attitude  of  the  Amer- 
ican Roman  Catholic  hierarchy  towards  the 
war.  The  address  of  the  Catholic  archbishops 
of  the  United  States,  headed  by  Cardinal  Gib- 
bon, is  unreserved  in  its  declaration  of  devo- 


66  AMERICAATWAR 

tioii  to  President  Wilson  in  his  policy.  Among 
the  signatories  are  Archbishop  Moeller,  of  Cin- 
cinnati, and  Archbishop  Messner,  of  Milwaukee, 
who,  I  have  small  doubt,  are  of  German  extrac- 
tion. Evidently  the  Catholic  Church  in  the 
United  States  is  not  afraid  to  identify  itself 
cordially  with  the  flowing  stream  of  American 
opinion  and  effort. 

A  conspicuous  feature  of  the  situation  to-day 
is  the  virtual  freedom  of  America  from  sedi- 
tious disturbance.  There  have  been  since  the 
declaration  of  a  state  of  war  fewer  acts  of 
violence  than  in  similar  intervals  during  many 
stages  since  the  outbreak  of  the  European  hos- 
tilities. To  realise  the  import  of  this,  one  must 
recall  what  many  anticipated  would  happen 
should  the  United  States  enter  the  arena.  Many 
imagined  that  the  forests  and  mountains  of 
America  would  be  fastnesses  from  which  aero- 
planes would  sweep  on  errands  of  destruction, 
and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  And  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  such  depredations  would  have 
seemed  rather  easily  feasible.  Nothing  of  the 
kind,  apparently,  is  occurring.  A  virtually 
complete  tranquillity  reigns  throughout  foreign 
America.  One  cause,  even  if  the  obsen^er  does 
not  care  to  adopt  the  most  optimistic  view  that 
might  be  advanced,  is  the  imposing  weight  of 
the  temper  of  the  people  as  a  whole.  The  pre- 
dominant elements  of  a  nation  of  one  hundred 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  67 

million  are  aroused.  Peace-breakers  know  for 
one  thing  that  they  would  get  short  shrift  in 
the  present  state  of  American  opinion.  There 
is  plenty  of  iron  to-day  in  the  blood  of  America. 
This  is  one  great  strength  that  the  United 
States  reaps  in  this  crisis  from  the  fact  of  its 
imposing  population. 

Last  night  as  I  rose  to  my  feet  in  the  dining- 
room  during  the  rendering  of  ^  *  The  Star-Span- 
gled Banner,"  I  asked  a  coloured  waiter  which 
is  the  most  popular  of  the  patriotic  airs. 
^* That's  it,  right  there,''  he  said.  Then  he 
proceeded  to  tell  me  of  an  incident  that  oc- 
curred in  that  same  room  a  few  nights  ago.  A 
senator  of  the  United  States  failed  to  stand 
when  ^'The  Star-Spangled  Banner"  was 
played.  Soon  the  place  was  full  of  confusion. 
It  looked  for  a  moment  as  if  the  senator  would 
be  *^ hustled"  from  the  place.  The  negro  told 
me  that  one  man  said,  after  trying  several  times 
to  get  the  apparently  refractory  man  to  rise 

to  his  feet :    ^  ^  I  called  you  Senator ,  I  called 

you  Mr.  ,  but  now  I  call  you  old  ," 

hailing  him  with  a  very  colloquial  version  of  his 
name.  I  thought  I  would  report  this  incident, 
if,  after  checking,  it  proved  to  be  correct.  I 
learned  later  that  the  senator  in  question  has 
been  a  determined  opponent  of  the  coloured 
people.  He  claims  that  the  amendment  of  the 
constitution  extending  the  franchise  to  negroes 


68  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

was  never  properly  ratified  by  tlie  states.  This 
explains  the  animus  of  the  coloured  man,  but 
the  incident  also  stands  as  illustrating  the  pop- 
ular temper. 

Wilson  is  an  astute  politician.  lie  is  also  a 
man  of  imagination.  He  is  reported  to  be  con- 
sidering an  American  delegation  to  Petrograd 
to  encourage  and  assist  the  new  government  in 
its  problems.  He  is  also  supposed  to  be  con- 
sidering ex-Senator  Root  as  head  of  the  com- 
mission. If  this  should  be  done  it  would  effec- 
tually exemplify  the  blurring  of  party  lines  that 
has  been  induced  by  the  war  condition.  Of  the 
same  import  is  the  fact  that,  a  majority  of  the 
House  committee  on  military  affairs  having  de- 
cided to  report  unfavourably  on  the  President's 
army  plan,  to  the  extent  of  throwing  on  him 
the  responsibility  of  inaugurating  conscrip- 
tion if  it  has  to  be  inaugurated,  Kahn, 
the  ranking  Republican  on  the  committee,  is 
slated  to  *^ steer"  the  administration  measure 
through  the  lower  chamber.  To  revert  to  the 
project  with  respect  to  Russia:  The  papers 
are  pointing  out  that  an  American  committee 
of  assistance  to  Russia  at  this  juncture  would 
be  of  a  piece  with  Lafayette's  coming  to  Amer- 
ica at  the  time  of  the  Revolutionary  War.  Army 
officers  at  that  time  on  this  side  pooh-poohed 
the  value  of  the  service  that  the  Frenchman 
could  render.     But  Washington    realised    the 


AMERICAATWAR  69 

moral  value,  at  any  rate,  of  Lafayette's  arrival, 
and  welcomed  him  with  open  arms.  Washing- 
ton had  imagination,  which  people  dominated 
by  routine  rarely  have,  and  his  judgment  was 
justified  by  the  event. 

Saturday  night  after  we  had  seen  Warfield  in 
his  charming  play,  my  cordial  big  Virginian, 
speaking  of  Roosevelt's  wanting  to  go  to 
France,  said :  ^ '  All  over  this  country  there  are 
great  numbers  of  dare-devil  Americans  who 
would  follow  Teddy  to  the  mouth  of  hell. ' ' 

Sunday  morning,  in  company  Avith  Mr.  James 
Fisher,  I  saw  the  President  at  church.  He  was 
accompanied  by  Mrs.  Wilson.  Rev.  James  H. 
Taylor,  the  minister,  preached  on  ^^The  Prepa- 
ration for  a  Great  Task,"  a  sermon  full  of  im- 
plied allusion  to  the  present  emergency.  As 
I  listened  to  this  minister  preaching  in  the 
presence  of  the  first  magistrate  I  could  not  help 
contrasting  the  scene  mentally  with  that  of,  say, 
Bossuet  preaching  in  the  presence  of  Louis 
XIV.  The  two  scenes  offer  what  might  be 
taken  as  an  emblem  of  the  advance  of  popular 
government.  This  man,  sitting  among  us,  as  it 
were,  one  of  us,  not  many  days  ago  signed  the 
declaration  of  a  state  of  war  against  Germany. 
He  is  the  point  of  the  pyramid  of  American 
democracy,  the  leader  of  the  new  phalanx  that 
is  girding  itself  for  a  trial  of  strength  with 
autocracy. 


SENATOR  LODGE  :  COMPLIMENTS  TO  CANADA 

Washington,  D.  C,  May  1st, 
IV/TET  La  Follette  this  evening  in  the  ro- 
^^^  tunda  of  the  Ebbitt  house.  He  is  not  an 
impressive  looking  man,  seen  at  short  range. 
When  I  told  him  I  was  representing  the  Free 
Press  he  introduced  me  to  his  secretary  and  to  a 
military  man,  who  were  with  hun.  I  said,  **I 
can't  tell  you  that  you  are  exactly  popular  in 
Canada  to-day — ^but  then  you  were  not  think- 
ing of  a  Canadian  constituency. '^  He  replied, 
*^No,  I  was  trying  to  give  some  help  to  some 
of  the  people  down  this  way."  He  invited  me 
to  call  on  him  up  at  the  capitol.  Runciman, 
the  manager  of  the  hotel,  by  the  way,  is  a  cousin 
of  Walter  Runciman,  president  of  the  Board  of 
Education  and  later  of  the  Board  of  Trade  in 
the  Asquith  government. 

To-night  as  I  walked  past  the  Franklin  Mac- 
Veagh  house  on  16th  street,  now  occupied  by 
Third  Assistant  Secretary  of  State  Brecken- 
ridge  Long,  which  has  been  placed  at  the  dis- 
posal of  Mr.  Balfour,  the  guards  had  just  in- 
tercepted what  they  regarded  as  a  suspicious 

70 


AMERICAATWAR  71 

character.  Under  a  strong  light  they  were  sub- 
jecting him  to  a  close  examination,  shaking  his 
sleeves  and  trousers  legs  and  otherwise  run- 
ning carefully  over  his  person.  Precautions 
have  evidently  not  ended  with  the  trip  across 
the  high  seas.  The  interest  in  Mr.  Balfour's 
visit  is  very  great. 

Armed  with  an  introduction  from  the  Brit- 
ish Ambassador  I  had  a  gratifying  conversation 
this  forenoon  with  Senator  Lodge.  I  said  Ca- 
nadians were  much  pleased  with  his  attitude 
respecting  the  war.  ^^Well  IVe  been  fighting 
for  the  Allies  here  during  the  last  two  and  a 
half  years,  and  now  we  are  in.''  I  had  a  point 
of  approach  with  the  dean  of  the  Senate  and 
easily  its  most  distinguished  member  because  I 
had  heard  in  January,  1911,  his  famous  address 
in  the  Symphony  Hall,  Boston.  I  have  already 
in  this  correspondence  characterised  that  speech 
as  the  ablest  political  address  I  have  ever  heard. 
I  have  never  forgotten  certain  isolated  sen- 
tences of  it.  *^My  public  service  is  all  public. 
There  is  not  a  page  of  my  political  record 
that  I  am  not  prepared  to  have  my  grandchil- 
dren see.  ...  I  love  the  old  Bay  state.  I  know 
every  inch  of  her  soil,  and  every  page  of  her 
history.  My  ancestors  lie  in  Sussex  grave- 
yards, on  Boston  Common,  and  beneath  the 
shadow  of  Park  Street  church."  As  I  was 
quoting  the  senator 's  sentences  I  hesitated  when 


72  AMERICAATWAR 

I  came  to  one  point  and  asked,  ^^Was  it  *in 
Pl}Tiioutli  graveyards  T'  *'No,  Sussex  and 
Boston  Common/'  he  answered.  When  I  re- 
ferred to  the  use  senators  had  made  Saturday 
afternoon  of  Canadian  experience  as  justify- 
ing the  vohmtcer  system  as  against  compulsory 
service,  Mr.  Lodge  said:  **You  see  the  per- 
formance of  the  Canadians  has  been  so  mag- 
nificent that  everybody  here  is  anxious  to  cite 
them/'  He  pointed  out  that  party  lines  are 
being  pushed  into  the  background  in  both  Cham- 
bers. He  instanced  the  vote  of  the  Senate  Mili- 
tary committee  in  reporting  favourably  on  the 
President's  scheme  for  raising  an  army.  The 
vote  was  10  to  7  in  favour.  Of  the  ten  sup- 
porting, five  were  Republican  and  ^ve  Demo- 
cratic. Of  the  seven  against  only  two  were  Re- 
publican while  five  were  Democratic. 

After  calling  on  the  Secretary  of  State  this 
morning  and  after  being  taken  by  him  to  the 
White  House,  Mr.  Balfour  came  to  the  capitol 
and  was  received  by  Vice-President  Marshall. 
In  the  Vice-President's  room  I  noticed  three 
justices  of  the  supreme  court,  Holmes,  Pitney 
and  Day.  Mr.  Balfour  was  slightly  detained, 
however,  and  the  three  justices  were  obliged  to 
leave  for  the  sitting  of  the  court  at  12 :00 
sharp.  Mr.  Balfour  came  accompanied  by 
Assistant  Secretary  of  State  Phillips  and  by 
Mr.  Gibson,  who  has  been  assigned  by  Presi- 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  73 

(lent  Wilson  to  the  British  Commissioner  as 
aide.  The  corridors  adjacent  to  the  Vice-Presi- 
dent's room  were  studded  with  police  and  se- 
cret service  men.  Two  competent  looking  Scot- 
land Yard  detectives  stood  close  to  the  open 
door  of  Mr.  Marshall's  room.  On  the  balcony 
outside  the  open  window,  before  which  Mr.  Bal- 
four sat,  two  policemen  paced.  Mr.  Balfour 
towers  in  stature  well  above  all  the  American 
officials  that  I  have  yet  seen  him  close  to.  He 
carries  with  him  an  atmosphere  of  gracious 
courtesy  that  arouses  the  most  favourable  com- 
ment. 

The  second  day  of  the  Army  bill  debate  in 
the  senate  brought  out  two  ratthng  speeches 
in  support  of  the  administration  plan  of  selec- 
tive drafts,  one  by  Weeks,  of  Massachusetts, 
and  the  other  by  Wadsworth,  of  New  York. 

Weeks  contended  that  the  corollary  of  pro- 
tection extended  to  nationals  in  all  quarters  of 
the  globe  is  the  universal  obligation  of  military 
service.  Justifying  ages  proposed  in  the  Presi- 
dent's  selective  draft  system — 19 — 25 — he  said 
only  40,000  out  of  2,600,000  in  the  northern  arm- 
ies in  the  Civil  War  were  about  25.  He  quoted 
Jaures,  the  French  Socialist,  as  saying  that 
voluntary  military  service  in  France  would  be 
as  unjustifiable  as  voluntary  taxation.  He  re- 
ported three  hundred  mayors  of  cities  in  all 
parts  of  the  United  States  totalling  nineteen 


74  AMERICAATWAR 

millions  of  population  as  signing  a  statement 
favouring  universal  military  service. 

Wads  worth,  of  New  York,  a  fine  brainy, 
spirited  type  of  man,  with  whom  I  had  a  con- 
versation on  Saturday  afternoon,  and  who 
spoke  to-day  with  admirable  control  of  his  sub- 
ject, said  America  must  build  for  great  events. 
Her  navy  is  ready,  but  in  the  case  of  the  army 
she  must  practically  begin  de  novo.  A  Repub- 
lican he  supported  the  administration  plan  to 
the  hilt.  Challenged  by  interruptors  to  show 
why  the  voluntary  system  should  not  first  be 
tried  now  since  Lincoln  called  for  volun- 
teers in  1861,  he  pointed  out  that,  thanks  largely 
to  the  British  navy,  America  is  not  in  peril  to- 
day as  in  1861.  If  volunteers  had  not  been  got 
with  a  rush  then,  Washington  would  have  fallen 
to  the  Virginians.  The  immunity  secured  for 
America  by  the  British  sea  forces  enables  the 
United  States,  and  should  lead  her,  to  build  a 
scientific  army  that  can  stay  in  this  war  to  the 
very  last.  An  army  built  on  scientific  princi- 
ples, as  provided  by  the  Selective  Conscription 
plan,  wall  be  proof  of  the  intention  of  America 
to  remain  in  to  the  bitter  end. 


XI 


RED-HOT   ARMY   DEBATE  IN   THE  HOUSE   OF 

REPRESENTATIVES 

Washington,  Z).  C,  May  2nd, 
nn  0-DAY,  Wednesday,  I  listened  for  four 
-*■  hours  to  a  red-hot  debate  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  on  the  Army  bill.  The  House 
has  a  straining,  tiery  air  about  it  that  com- 
pletely differentiates  it  from  the  graver  Senate. 
The  personnel  of  the  house  is  a  mirror  of  the 
polyglot  population  of  the  country.  Italians, 
Germans,  Jews,  Irish,  mingle  with  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  native  American  population. 
Cannon  sits,  deacon-like  in  looks,  in  the  midst 
of  this  House  consisting  for  the  most  part  of 
men  of  a  younger  generation,  which  has  shot 
away  from  him  and  over  which,  I  imagine,  he 
exerts  little  influence.  Perhaps  it  would  be 
well  for  me  briefly  to  summarise  the  Adminis- 
tration's army  plans.  The  regular  army  of  the 
United  States  consisted  on  April  1,  of  105,000 
men.  Since  that  date  enlistments  total  25,000. 
It  now  stands,  therefore,  at  130,000.  The  Army 
Staff  bill  proposes  the  expansion  of  this  force 
to   270,000  by  voluntary  enlistment.     Should 

75 


76  AMERICAATWAR 

this,  however,  not  proceed  rapidly  enough,  the 
bill  authorises  the  President  in  the  exercise  of 
his  jiidg-ment  to  use  the  drafting  power.  The 
National  Guard,  as  the  State  forces  are  known, 
and  for  whose  nationalisation  provision  is 
made,  is  similarly  to  be  swelled  to  330,000. 
Here  again,  if  voluntary  enlistment  does  not 
proceed  fast  enough,  the  president  may  apply 
the  draft.  In  the  next  place  the  bill  provides 
for  a  compulsory  registration  of  all  men  be- 
tween the  ages  of  19  and  25. 

The  selection  of  these  ages  is  one  of  the 
grounds  of  attack  upon  the  bill,  but  the  admin- 
istration spokesmen  would  seem  to  have  their 
opponents  outargiied.  In  the  first  place  there 
is  the  recognised  experience  of  the  present  war 
that  the  wastage  increases  by  leaps  and  bounds 
as  the  age  of  the  soldier  mounts.  To  meet  the 
claim  that  the  age  of  25  should  be  transcended 
there  are  the  figures  cited  by  Weeks  in  the  sen- 
ate that  in  the  Northern  armies  of  the  Civil 
War,  there  were  out  of  2,600,000  men  only  40,- 
000  above  25.  And  military  service  to-day, 
much  more  imperatively  than  in  the  '60 's,  calls 
for  young  men.  On  the  other  hand,  to  offset  the 
attack  of  those  who  claim  that  the  ages  pro- 
posed mean  the  unjustifiable  and  unprecedented 
sacrifice  of  the  youth  of  the  country,  there  are 
the  official  figures  read  into  the  senate  record 
by  Knute  Wilson,  a  veteran  of  the  Civil  War, 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  77 

showing  that  in  that  struggle  the  North  had 
840,000  men  of  the  age  of  17,  and  1,580,000  men 
of  the  age  of  18. 

To  revert  to  the  Executive's  plan  of  a  com- 
pulsory enrollment  of  all  men  between  the  ages 
of  19  and  25.  It  is  expected  that  this  will  dis- 
close an  available  supply  of  7,000,000  men.  Of 
these  40  per  cent,  may  be  rejected  for  physical 
reasons  or  exempted  for  causes  specified  in  the 
bill.  The  remaining  60  per  cent,  are  to  be 
drafted  by  lot  in  units  of  500,000  each  as  they 
may  be  required. 

The  Senate  Military  committee  has  reported 
favourably  on  the  bill,  and  all  comments  point 
to  the  safe  passage  of  the  measure  in  that  Cham- 
ber. In  the  House  a  much  bitterer  struggle  is 
proceeding.  Here  the  Military  committee  has 
reported  adversely.  The  majority  reports' 
favouring  an  initial  trial  of  the  volunteer  sys- 
tem, but  empowering  the  President  at  his  dis- 
cretion to  apply  the  draft.  This  amounts  to 
what  is  colloquially  called  *' passing  the  buck*' 
to  the  President ;  or,  in  other  words,  to  throw- 
ing the  responsibility  for  compulsion  on  him. 
The  chances  have  hitherto  been  that  the  bill 
would  not  pass  the  House,  but  the  temperature 
is  rapidly  changing.  A  careful  student  of  the 
House  told  me  to-day  that  two  weeks  ago  the 
bill  undoubtedly  would  not  have  passed;  but 
that  it  will  when  the  pressure,  of  which  Wilson 


78  AMERICAATWAR 

is  such  an  admitted  master,  has  been  applied. 
*' They '11  wilt  when  he  really  gets  to  work/' 
Champ  Chirk,  by  the  way,  Speaker  of  the 
House,  evidently  angered  by  the  presentation 
to  him  of  1,000,000  signatures  favouring  com- 
pulsion, on  Tuesday  blazed  out  saying,  ''Con- 
scription will  never  pass  the  house." 

Judge  Harrison,  representing  Thomas  Jeffer- 
son's county  in  Virginia,  said  in  to-day's  de- 
bates, social  ostracism  operates  unfairly  in  vol- 
unteer system.  Far  better,  enroll  all,  leaving 
registered  men  calmly  to  await  call  of  the  na- 
tion when  it  has  prepared  itself  properly — in 
Wadsworth's  word,  scientifically — to  take  care 
of  him  as  a  soldier.  Harrison  quoted  Jefferson 
effectively  as  favouring  compulsory  service  as 
the  true  method  of  democracy. 

William  Gordon,  representing  a  congres- 
sional district  in  the  west  side  of  Cleveland, 
Ohio,  flooded  with  Germans,  an  alleged  Pacifist 
and  certainly  an  anti-conscriptionist,  made  a 
violent  attack  on  the  administration  measure. 
If  he  is  a  Pacifist  he  was  to-day  afraid  to  avow 
his  colours,  for  he  said:  "We  won't  delay  get- 
ting an  army  for  a  minute  by  refusing  to  sup- 
port conscription.  We'll  get  a  better  one." 
With  regard  to  the  charge  that  a  volunteer 
army  would  be  a  mob,  he  said:  ''They  call 
Kitchener's  army  a  mob.  Well,  Kitchener's 
mob  is  winning  the  war. ' '  By  the  way,  alluding 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  79 

to  the  topsy-turvey  character  of  a  hastily  ini- 
provised  volunteer  force,  Green,  of  Vermont, 
interjected  a  telling  quotation  from  Falstaff : 
*  ^  See  to  it  that  we  fight  not  on  a  hot  day,  for,  by 
the  Lord,  I  take  but  one  shirt  with  me/^  Into 
another  anti-conscription  speech  a  congress- 
man who  is  an  Italian  barber  of  New  York,  in- 
terjected a  vigorous  plea  for  conscription. 
Think  of  the  national  significance  of  that. 

These  two  interpolations  illustrate  the  im- 
pression of  notable  vitality  produced  by  the 
lower  House.  It  is  unruly  and,  in  a  way,  un- 
kempt. But  it  has  the  air  of  coming  boiling 
hot  from  the  heart  of  a  mighty  people.  There 
is  evidently  a  group  of  men  in  the  House  who 
have  pretty  nearly  boxed  the  compass  on  the 
question  of  the  war;  or  perhaps  it  would  be 
more  accurate  to  say,  they  have  made  a  series 
of  strategic  retreats.  First  they  are  alleged 
to  have  been  Pro-German ;  then  they  wanted  to 
instruct  their  countrymen  to  keep  off  the  boats 
of  the  allies;  now  they  are  opposing  enforced 
national  service. 

Caldwell,  of  New  York,  member  of  a  firm  of 
lawyers  with  the  style  of  *^  Caldwell  and  Mur- 
phy,'* presumably  an  Irishman,  said:  **This 
is  not  a  day  for  dissension,  but  for  action.  The 
silence  from  the  Russian  front  seems  to  indi- 
cate that  the  United  States  may  have  to  take 
the  place  of  Russia  in  fighting  the  Kaiser.     I 


80  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

follow  the  President  because  I  am  prepared  to 
believe  that  that  calm,  farsi<j^hted  man  under- 
stands the  situation,  and  believes  the  prospects 
of  the  war  require  an  army  of  the  character 
contemplated  by  the  plan  of  the  General  Staff." 

Anthony,  Kansas,  Republican,  supporting  the 
committee^s  majority  amendment,  said:  ^*Con- 
scription  means  delay.  Volunteer  plan  will 
produce  an  army  more  quickly.  Thirty  days 
will  summon  a  volunteer  force  of  500,000  men. 
Conscription  will  take  six  months  to  turn  out 
that  number." 

Lenroot,  Wisconsin,  reported  as  having  in 
the  past  been  a  devoted  coadjutor  of  La  Fol- 
lette,  supported  the  President's  plan  very  ably. 
In  passing  I  may  say  that  La  Follette's  stock 
seems  very  low  to-day.  I  have  no  wish  to  play 
fast  and  loose  with  reputations;  but  one  can- 
not watch  things  closely  here  without  seeing 
that,  for  men  who  have  had  national  standing. 
La  Follette  and  Bryan  are  to-day  negligible 
factors.  The  former  wholly,  the  latter  rela- 
tively, so. 

I  do  not  think  that  any  Canadian  reader  can 
examine  the  picture  I  have  tried  to  give  here 
without  concluding  that  this  Army  bill  debate, 
at  once  in  the  stormy  popular  Chamber  and  in 
the  more  sedate  Senate — with  accompaniments 
in  both  instances  of  crowded  galleries  and  a 
press    pounding    almost   wholly    one    way — is 


AMERICAATWAR  81 

proving  when  all  is  said  and  done  a  salutary,  and 
vital  process  in  which  the  vast  elements  of 
population  of  this  country  are  being  digested 
and  co-ordinated  in  the  direction  of  a  great  Na- 
tional Idea. 

Ed.  Note. — The  despatches  from  Washington 
in  to-day's  issue  vindicate  Prof.  Osborne's  pre- 
diction that,  when  the  time  came  to  vote,  Con- 
gress would  declare  for  selective  conscription. 
On  Saturday  the  House  of  Representatives 
voted  in  favour  of  the  proposition  315  to  89; 
while  in  the  senate  it  was  81  for  and  8  against. 
— Ed.  Free  Press, 


XII 

BALFOUR    AND    JOFFRE 

Washington,  D.  C,  May  3rd. 
A/rE.  BALFOUR  accorded  a  ^^ collective'^  in- 
-*--*■  terview,  25  minutes  in  length,  to  repre- 
sentatives of  the  press  this  (Thursday)  morn- 
ing. Fully  sixty  journalists  assembled  to  hear 
the  great  envoy.  The  interview  was  prefaced 
by  a  brief  address  from  Butler,  press  interme- 
diary, in  which  he  warned  the  newspapermen 
of  the  greatness  of  the  interests  involved  and 
of  the  absolute  necessity  of  caution  on  their 
part.  The  commission  was  evidently  somewhat 
alarmed  by  the  tone  of  some  of  the  morning's 
reports  of  General  Bridge's  conference  yester- 
day. It  had  been  made,  inadvertently  no  doubt, 
to  bear  too  directly  on  the  pending  conscrip- 
tion discussion  here.  If  the  greatest  restraint 
was  not  practiced  by  the  press,  the  intimacy  of 
discussions  with  representatives  of  it  would 
inevitably  be  lessened.  The  commission  is  here 
to  exhibit  frankly  British  experience  in  the  war, 
but  not  to  admonish  the  American  authorities 
or  people. 
As  Mr.  Balfour  entered,  and  while  he  spoke, 

82 


AMERICAATWAR  83 

I  was  struck  with  his  growing  resemblance  as 
he  becomes  older  to  his  uncle,  the  Marquis  of 
Salisbury.  His  domelike  head  is  like  his 
uncle's;  and  his  slightly  increased  stoutness, 
with  a  little  puffiness  beneath  the  eyes,  lessens 
the  impression  of  mobility  and  lends  him  a 
touch  of  the  phlegmatic,  which,  while  by  no 
means  pronounced,  increases  the  resemblance 
to  which  I  have  alluded.  He  spoke  with  ex- 
treme quietness  and  deliberation.  All  present 
were  plainly  impressed  by  the  note  of  deep 
feeling  that  pervaded  Mr.  Balfour's  remarks 
as  he  spoke  of  the  tragedy  of  the  war. 

Not  being  sure  how  complete  a  version  of  this 
address  will  have  reached  western  Canadian 
readers,  I  shall  give  a  fairly  complete  account 
of  it.  It  was  admirably  phrased,  and  if  there 
are  any  defects  in  my  summary,  the  faults  will 
be  mine,  as  there  were  none  in  the  original. 

Mr.  Balfour  said  the  British  commission  was 
fully  sensible  of  the  kindness,  the  enthusiasm, 
the  warmth  of  the  welcome  its  members  had  re- 
ceived from  the  great  American  people.  This 
outward  manifestation  was  the  expression,  he 
was  persuaded,  of  a  real  cordiality  of  senti- 
ment. It  was  clear  that  the  American  people 
was  determined  to  throw  itself  with  heartiness 
into  the  greatest  struggle  ever  waged.  He  was 
conscious  of  a  great  change  of  conditions  in 
passing  from  England  to  America.    On  Sunday 


84  AMERICAATWAR 

evening  after  dark  he  had  gone  out  for  a  walk. 
He  was  aware  of  a  fooling  that  at  first  he  had 
not  analysed.  At  last  he  realised  that  his 
'strange  fooling  was  due  to  the  fact  that  this 
was  the  first  time  in  two  and  a  half  years  that 
he  had  soon  a  properly  lighted  street.  The 
tragic  consciousness  of  the  war  was  always 
present  with  them.  He  had  just  learned  that 
the  son  of  Mr.  Bonar  Law  was  missing.  This 
reminded  him  that  of  men  of  cabinet  rank  at 
the  outbreak  of  the  war,  one  had  been  killed  in 
action  and  four  had  lost  sons.  Now  the  chan- 
cellor of  the  exchequer's  son  was  wounded  and 
missing  in  Palestine. 

France,  said  Mr.  Balfour,  was  even  more  full 
than  Britain  of  suffering  and  sorrow.  The 
French  mission  was  to  arrive  to-day.  One  of 
these,  Marshal  Joffre,  w^ill  go  down  to  all  time 
as  the  successful  general  of  the  allied  forces  in 
the  Battle  of  the  Marne,  the  most  decisive  bat- 
tle in  history.  The  magnitude  of  the  assistance 
to  be  received  by  the  allies  from  America  can- 
not be  exaggerated.  He  was  almost  amused  to 
know  that  in  some  quarters  it  was  supposed 
that  the  object  of  the  mission  was  to  inveigle 
the  United  States  into  a  departure  from  her 
traditional  policy  and  into  entangling  alliances. 
Such  suppositions  wore  wholly  unfounded.  The 
confidence  of  the  allies  in  America  was  not 
based  on  such  things  as  formal  treaties,  public 


AMERICAATWAR  85 

or  private.  No  treaty  could  reinforce  the  con- 
fidence felt  by  the  allies  that  the  United  States 
will  see  the  war  through.  The  commission  was 
sure  that  the  American  people  believe  this  to 
be  no  paltry  or  vulgar  quarrel,  due  to  lust  for 
territory  on  the  part  of  any  of  the  allies.  The 
liberty  of  the  world  is  in  issue.  There  never 
was  any  doubt  where  America  would  stand 
when  that  was  realised. 

The  instant  Mr.  Balfour  finished  his  remarks, 
a  slightly  ^^ fussed,''  startled  look  seemed  to 
pass  over  his  face  as  if  he  feared  that,  his 
speech  being  concluded,  the  cohorts  of  the 
pouncing  gentlemen  of  the  Fourth  Estate  would 
let  themselves  loose  on  him  in  questions.  Need- 
less to  say,  the  deference  created  by  the  visi- 
tor's distinguished  personality  procured  him  a 
complete  immunity. 

Balfour  at  close  range  and  the  victor  of  the 
Marne  in  one  forenoon ! 

The  arrival  of  Joffre  had  been  announced 
for  12:30.  The  Mayflower,  however,  bearing 
the  French  party,  was  opposite  her  landing 
place  at  12 :  05.  From  the  time  she  came  op- 
posite us,  it  took  her  at  least  twenty  minutes  to 
sidle  in  to  the  dock. 

Among  the  personages  forming  a  line  along 
the  rail  of  the  President's  yacht  were  Roose- 
velt, the  assistant  secretary  of  the  navy,  Jus- 
serand,  the  French  ambassador;  Joffre  himself, 


86  AMERICAATWAR 

and  Viviani,  minister  of  justice.  A  member  of 
the  party,  included  with  special  felicity,  was  the 
Marquis  de  Chambrun,  great-grandson  of  La- 
fayette. On  the  landing  stage,  in  the  fore- 
ground, were  Lansing,  secretary  of  state ;  Phil- 
lips, assistant  secretary  of  state,  and  Harts,  the 
President's  military  aid.  Close  at  hand  stood  a 
large  group  from  the  French  embassy.  The 
same  two  troops  of  cavalry  that  attended  Mr. 
Balfour  on  Sunday  w^ere  drawn  up  in  the  back- 
ground, supplemented  by  detachments  of  ma- 
rines, considered  the  finest  forces  of  the  Re- 
public. 

The  first  of  the  receiving  party  to  go  on 
board  was  Lansing,  closely  followed  by  Phil- 
lips and  Harts.  Perhaps  ten  minutes  was  oc- 
cupied by  presentations,  and  then  the  debarka- 
tion took  place.  Lansing  and  Viviani,  repre- 
senting the  civil  power,  came  first,  though,  as 
I  do  not  need  to  say,  Joffre  was  the  cynosure 
of  all  eyes.  He  looked  the  embodiment  of 
quietly  jolly  strength.  A  figure  of  great  weight 
and  girth.  A  face  of  extreme  kindliness.  Not 
a  suggestion  of  weakness  such  as  might  be  due 
to  age  or  fatigue.  In  fact,  the  great  soldier 
looked  the  pink  of  health  and  strength. 

The  first  troop  of  cavalry  led  away.  The 
automobiles  filled  and  rolled  off.  The  second 
troop  of  cavalry  fell  in.  As  the  procession 
moved  along  the  roadways  of  the  navy  yard 


AMERICAATWAR  87 

the  windows  of  the  buildings  were  filled  with 
employees,  breaking  constantly  into  cheers. 
JofPre  w^as  kept  saluting  all  the  time.  At  the 
entrance  to  the  navy  yard  a  great  crowd  waited, 
and  I  understand  that  the  streets  all  the  way  to 
the  capitol,  and  thereafter,  were  lined. 


XIII 

CHAMP    CLAKK    THROWS    DOWN    THE    GAUNTLET    TO 
WILSON 

Washington,  B.C.,  May  4th. 
T  MENTIONED  in  my  last  letter  that  Champ 
-*■  Clark  was  expected  to  oppose  immediate 
conscription.  Hardly  had  I  finished  writing 
when,  stepping  to  the  door  of  the  press  gallery, 
I  heard  Dent  say:  ^'I  yield  for  as  long  as  he 
may  desire  to  the  honourable  gentleman  from 
Missouri,  the  Speaker  of  the  House. ' '  The  visi- 
tors'  galleries  were  packed.  The  press  seats 
filled  up  rapidly.  Clark  received  a  warm  wel- 
come from  the  House,  the  entire  membership 
rising.  He  is  said  to  enjoy  great  popularity 
among  both  parties,  one  of  the  causes  of  this 
popularity  being  the  unswerving  impartiality 
of  his  rulings.  As  the  sitting  advanced  I  no- 
ticed a  number  of  senators  at  the  back  of  the 
House.  When  Clark  had  been  speaking  about 
fifteen  minutes.  Sir  George  Foster,  Canada's 
Acting  Premier,  entered  the  Chamber  in  com- 
pany with  Senator  Kellogg,  of  Minnesota.  The 
intervention  of  Clark  in  this  momentous  debate 
proved  to  be  easily  the  most  picturesque  and 

88 


AMERICAATWAR  89 

dramatic  incident  I  have  yet  witnessed  in  either 
House. 

The  Speaker's  first  words  were:  *^I  don't 
want  to  be  interrupted  till  I  finish.  At  the  end 
I'll  answer  any  reasonable  question  that  may 
be  addressed  to  me.  I  know  what  I  want  to 
say,  and  I  want  to  say  it  in  a  connected  way." 
Without  a  particle  of  beating  about  the  bush, 
he  plunged  into  his  subject.  His  prompt  open- 
ing was  very  effective  and  served  to  illustrate 
his  knowledge  of  the  temper  of  the  House. 
There  was  something  big  and  elemental  about 
the  way  he  broke  his  opening  ground.  He  took 
no  pains  to  conceal  the  gravity  of  what  he  was 
doing  in  crossing  swords  with  the  Executive, 
who,  of  course,  is  the  leader  of  his  party.  ^'It 
is  not  pleasant  to  differ  with  the  President — 
especially  when  the  President  is  one  you  have 
helped  to  elect."  He  asserted  his  general  loy- 
alty to  his  party  chief.  *^ Farther  than  that  I 
will  not  go,  so  help  me  Almighty  God. ' '  ^  ^  The 
President  of  the  United  States  is  the  most  pow- 
erful personage  on  earth,  because  he  is  the  head 
of  100,000,000  free  people.  He  has  his  function, 
and,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  see,  he  is  not 
bashful  about  performing  it.  The  members  of 
this  Congress  similarly  have  their  function. 
This  is  still  a  free  country.  Tyranny  has  not 
yet  invaded  the  House  of  Representatives.  We 
have  entered  upon  a  great  war.    This  house  will 


90  AMERICAATWAR 

vote  every  dollar  and  make  every  effort  needed 
to  bring  that  war  to  a  successful  completion. 
There  are  no  differences  between  us  in  this  re- 
gard. What  we  differ  in  is,  our  view  as  to  meth- 
ods. One  side  wants  conscription,  wants  it  right 
away,  and  will  be  satisfied  with  nothing  else. 
That  side  wishes  to  drag  patriotic  men  into  the 
army  by  the  collar.  The  other  side  wishes  to 
give  the  voluntary  system  a  chance  first.  I  am 
unreserv^edly  in  favour  of  the  volunteer  amend- 
ment to  the  Army  bill. ' '  There  was  no  denying 
the  effectiveness  of  this  opening. 

At  the  risk  of  repetition,  I  remind  the  reader 
of  this  correspondence  that  the  majority  report 
of  the  Military  committee  provides  for  an  at- 
tempt to  recruit  by  voluntary  methods  the  first 
unit  of  500,000.  This  is  in  addition  to  the  ex- 
pansion to  war  footing  of  the  regular  army  and 
the  state  militia.  The  said  report  then  author- 
ises the  President,  at  any  time  when  it  appears 
necessary  in  his  discretion,  to  apply  the  draft. 
The  hostile  view  of  this  proposal  is  that  it  un- 
fairly sidesteps  responsibility  and  throws  the 
odium  of  conscription  on  the  sole  shoulders  of 
the  President.  The  favorable  view  is  that  it 
provides  for  the  testing  of  voluntarism  and 
gives  genuine  Americanism  a  chance.  I  con- 
fess that,  basing  my  opinion  on  British  and 
Canadian  experience  in  the  war,  I  incline  to  the 
scientific  and  systematic  methods  of  the  Presi- 


AMERICAATWAR  91 

dent.  At  the  same  time  there  is  no  use  blink- 
ing the  fact  that  there  are  formidable  consider- 
ations on  the  other  side.  There  is  for  one  thing 
the  grand  contention  that  the  country  is  swarm- 
ing with  adventurous  spirits — ranchers,  cow- 
boys, sportsmen,  and  what  not — who  are  strain- 
ing at  the  leash  to  volunteer,  who  will  need, 
so  it  is  said,  an  absolute  minimum  of  training, 
who  will  not  be  found  by  the  draft,  and  who  by 
the  same  token,  will  not  consent  to  be  con- 
scripted. 

I  had  a  remarkable  conversation  last  night 
with  a  widely-known  General  in  the  National 
Guard  of  Ohio.  Clark  ^s  speech  represented  ex- 
actly his  point  of  view.  He  is  a  dead  shot.  Has 
competed  at  Bisley  and  in  France,  winning  all 
kinds  of  trophies.  He  has  been  in  the  state 
militia  thirty-four  years.  He  was  military  aide 
to  McKinley  and  had  charge  in  a  military  way 
of  McKinley 's  funeral.  He  has  superintended 
the  preparation  of  some  of  the  finest  shooting 
ranges  in  the  country.  He  served  in  the  Span- 
ish-American War.  He  is  dead  against  the  ad- 
ministration bill,  and  whole  heartedly  in  favor 
of  the  Dent  amendment.  He  believes  conscript 
American  soldiers  will  be  poor  stuff.  He  says 
the  conscripted  men  in  the  Civil  War  almost  all 
deserted  or  refused  to  face  fire.  He  refuses  to 
listen  to  the  example  of  continental  countries 
like  France.    Says  that  example  is  invalidated 


92  AMERICAATWAR 

here  because  the  American  spirit  and  American 
conditions  are  so  different.  ^^They  drink  con- 
scription with  their  mother's  milk.  We  don't.'* 
Then  there  is  the  contention  that  when  it  comes 
to  the  rub  drafting  will  be  resisted.  *^  Watch 
out  for  the  country  west  of  Pittsburgh."  It 
cannot  be  gainsaid;  these  are  formidable  ob- 
jections. 

I  met  the  General  in  the  rotunda  again  to-day. 
I  rallied  him  on  having  written  Clark's  speech, 
but  he  disclaimed  responsibility.  *^If  he  says 
what  you  say  he  said,  he  was  expressing  the  real 
Americanism  of  this  country."  He  then  re- 
ferred to  a  conversation  he  had  had  a  few  mo- 
ments before  with  the  manager  of  the  Goodyear 
Eubber  Tire  company.  ^' Which  plan  will  give 
us  quick  action  and  results!"  the  General  was 
asked.  His  answer  was :  *  ^  The  volunteer  plan 
will  give  us  an  army  in  90  days."  On  the  one 
hand,  remember  this  man  is  keen  to  have  the 
country  get  at  the  Germans.  On  the  other  side 
there  are  two  things  to  be  borne  in  mind:  A 
militia  man  of  this  type  is  apt  to  be  prejudiced 
against  the  regular  army,  and  in  the  second 
place  one  cannot  help  being  haunted  by  the  fear 
that  men  like  Champ  Clark  and  the  General  to 
whom  I  am  alluding,  ignore  too  completely  the 
enormous  changes  that  have  taken  place,  es- 
pecially since  the  Civil  War,  in  fighting  condi- 
tions. 


AMERICAATWAR  93 

^^To  make  the  men  of  Missouri  fight  in  this 
war/'  said  Champ  Clark  this  afternoon,  ^*a 
draft  is  not  needed.  In  Missouri  a  conscript  is 
held  little  different  from  a  convict.''  *^Let  the 
men  of  my  state  fight  together  as  Missouri  men ; 
wounded,  their  neighbours  it  will  be  who  will 
give  them  first  aid.  Sick,  it  mil  be  their  own 
friends  who  will  be  beside  them.  Dead,  it  will 
be  men  who  know  them  that  will  bury  them." 
This  may  bespeak  ignorance  of  the  terrific  and 
colossal  conditions  of  modern  fighting  as  it  is 
now  going  on  in  Europe,  but  no  one  can  deny 
that  it  constitutes  a  powerful  appeal. 

This  brings  me  to  a  point  where  I  think  I  can 
with  advantage  analyse  the  appeal  made  with 
such  undeniable  power  by  Champ  Clark  this  af- 
ternoon. He  appealed,  as  I  have  just  shown,  to 
territorial  pride.  He  prophesies  that  the  drafted 
army  will  not  preserve  the  identity  of  local 
units.  **This  is  the  secret  of  the  great  tradi- 
tions of  the  Scots  Greys."  I  have  tried  to  pay 
my  full  respect  to  the  formidable  effect  of  his 
address,  so  that  I  think  I  am  now  free  to  say 
that  he  showed  great  adroitness  in  his  method 
of  appeal.  In  the  first  place,  it  was  throughout 
emotional,  rather  than  argumentative.  He  ap- 
pealed to  the  pride  of  the  House  as  against  the 
Senate,  which  is  alleged  to  be  already  chortling 
over  the  prospect  of  imposing  its  will  on  the 
lower  Chamber.    He  appealed,  at  least  by  impli- 


94  AMERICAATWAR 

cation,  to  the  House  against  executive  pressure. 
He  rallied  the  pride  of  the  House  as  against  su- 
percilious critics  outside,  who  all  thought  they 
knew  more  than  the  people's  representatives. 
He  rang  the  changes  on  patriotic  feeling,  citing 
Washington  and  Grant  as  being  hostile  to  con- 
scription. *^What  was  Washington  after  all? 
Oh,  just  a  volunteer. '^  Finally  he  appealed  to 
national  pride  at  large.  **I  resent  these  slurs 
on  the  American  volunteer  in  the  name  alike 
of  the  living  and  of  the  dead.  I  decline  to  be- 
lieve that  the  present  generation  of  Americans 
are  cowards." 

I  should  like  very  much  to  have  space  to  ana- 
lyse his  manner.  Because,  make  no  mistake 
about  it,  he  is  an  American  product,  representa- 
tive of  certain  broadly  human  American  traits. 
His  language  is  now  quaint,  now  humorous,  now 
almost  frankly  rough.  As  he  spoke  one  coat 
sleeve  crept  halfway  up  his  arm,  but  he  paid  no 
attention  to  it.  Speaking  of  Roosevelt  he  said : 
^ '  I  rather  like  Roosevelt.  One  reason  is  because 
he  knows  a  little  about  more  things  than  any 
other  man  on  earth."  Summoned  to  speak 
louder  at  one  point,  he  drawled :  ^ '  Why,  I  wasn  't 
talking  at  all  then."  Anent  the  newspaper 
propaganda  for  conscription  he  said:  '*I  wish 
to  the  Lord  the  editors  of  the  country  could  be 
put  in  the  front  line."  ^^ Where  is  the  man 
prepared  to  say  the  volunteers  of  the  Civil  War 


AMERICAATWAR  95 

on  both  sides  were  not  good  fighting  men?  I^d 
like  to  see  the  colour  of  his  hair,  and  the  cut  of 
his  eye/'  Here  evidently  is  a  sort  of  legislative 
Mark  Twain.  Champ  Clark  has  the  air  of  a 
horse  trader  of  a  good  tjj)e  strayed  into  states- 
manship. He  carries  with  him  in  some  indefin- 
able way  suggestions  of  the  Mississippi  tow- 
path. 

His  close  was  tremendously  effective.  ^^My 
one  son  is  going  into  the  army  in  whatever  ca- 
pacity he  can  serve  in.  If  he  should  fall,  I  wish 
the  privilege  of  being  able  to  carve  upon  his 
tomb:  'This  man,  a  Missouri  volunteer,  died 
fighting  for  his  country.'  " 

I  think  the  President's  plan  is  the  more  scien- 
tific. In  this  respect  it  is  in  line  with  other 
legislation  he  has  been  instrumental  in  passing, 
such  as  that  creating  the  Federal  Reserve  Bank- 
ing system.  Whether  it  makes  the  mistake  of 
bottling  the  country  up,  instead  of  releasing  its 
enthusiasm,  is  a  weighty  and  momentous  ques- 
tion. But  at  any  rate  Champ  Clark's  was  an 
extraordinary  speech.  It  produced  an  extraor- 
dinary impression,  and  it  may  conceivably 
create  a  situation  that  it  may  take  some  time 
to  compose. 


XIV 

A  GERMAN-BOEN    SUPPORTER   OF   WILSON 

Washington,  D.  C,  May  5th. 
rpiIE  energising  of  American  opinion,  mak- 
^  ing  sure  determined  participation  in  the 
war  by  the  American  people  as  a  whole,  goes 
forward  magnificently.  The  air  is  full  of  dra- 
matic incidents,  small  and  big,  which  are  firing 
the  imagination  of  the  people.  The  following 
are  typical.  As  the  French  party,  on  board  the 
Mayflower,  ascended  the  Potomac,  when  the  ves- 
sel came  opposite  Mount  Vernon,  Washington's 
home,  the  members  of  the  Commission  stood 
with  heads  uncovered.  When  the  *'Star  Span- 
gled Banner''  was  played  during  the  landing 
at  the  Navy  Yard,  the  ci\dl  members  of  the  Com- 
mission again  doffed  their  hats,  Joffre's  hand 
rising  to  the  salute.  At  a  certain  point  in  the 
party's  progress  through  the  streets  to  their 
Washington  home,  the  leading  members  of  the 
British  Commission  were  awaiting  them.  Bal- 
four and  his  associates  rose  in  the  tonneau  of 
their  automobile,  and,  greeting  their  French 
confreres,  were  responded  to  in  kind.    On  their 

96 


AMERICAATWAR  97 

arrival  at  the  Henry  D.  White  home,  assigned 
to  them,  the  French  delegates  found  floral  greet- 
ings awaiting  them,  sent  by  Mr.  Balfour.  The 
flowers  were  accompanied  by  the  inscription: 
**Vive  PAlliance.  Hommages  aux  Francais  de 
la  part  de  leur  freres  britanniques. "  In  the 
same  sense  is  an  incident,  apocryphal  or  real, 
flashed  this  morning  from  England.  Reaching 
Liverpool  the  captain  of  the  U.  S.  ship  Mon- 
golia reports  the  probable  sinking  of  a  German 
U-boat  by  his  gunners.  He  adds  that  the  shot 
which  he  thinks  did  the  business  was  launched 
from  a  gun  christened  T.  R.  *'So  that  Teddy 
fired  the  first  shot  in  the  war,  after  all.''  Need- 
less to  say  Mr.  Roosevelt  voices  his  gratifica- 
tion. '*I  am  glad  somebody  on  our  side  is  be- 
ginning to  hit  back.  We  have  been  too  long 
on  the  receiving  end  of  this  war.''  ^^The  re- 
ceiving end"  is  a  flash  of  genius,  and  might 
easily  become  a  slogan. 

The  immense  emotional  potentialities  of  Jof- 
fre's  coming  are  already  beginning  to  operate. 
It  is  suggested  that  he  might  well  make  a  prog- 
ress across  the  continent  to  San  Francisco.  Be- 
yond question  a  transcontinental  journey  by 
him,  if  he  found  it  possible  to  make  such,  would 
be  hailed  with  acclaim.  It  might  set  on  fire  * '  in- 
terior America"  in  the  interests  of  the  war. 
The  Atlantic  littoral  is  in  a  condition  of  pretty 
complete  spiritual  preparedness.     It  only  re- 


98  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

mains  to  bring  the  interior  of  the  country  fullj 
abreast. 

The  opposition  in  the  house  to  the  President's 
Draft  Bill  appears  to-night  to  be  crumpling  up. 
It  was  backed  off  the  boards,  so  far  as  argument 
is  concerned,  to-day  by  the  speech  of  Kahn,  the 
Republican  from  California,  who  is  handling 
the  passage  of  the  bill.  To-day  I  looked  Kahn 
up  in  the  Congressional  Directory  and  found 
that  he  was  born  in  the  Grand  Duchy  of  Baden 
in  1861  and  came  to  America  in  1866.  He  is  a 
solid  man,  evidently  much  respected  in  the 
house.  In  appearance  he  is  a  plumper  edition 
of  Sir  John  A.  Macdonald.  It  was  very  impres- 
sive to  see  a  man  of  German  birth,  a  Republi- 
can, standing  as  chief  sponsor  for  the  Army  Bill 
of  a  Democratic  President.  He  struck  more 
clearly  than  any  one  else  that  I  have  heard  the 
note  of  gratitude  to  the  Republic :  '  ^  This  glori- 
ous Republic  under  which  the  American  citizen 
receives  so  many  privileges."  That  is  the  real 
answer  of  American  democracy  to  the  Kaiser. 

Kahn's  argument  was  irresistible  and  threw 
into  clear  relief  the  almost  purely  emotional 
appeal  of  the  other  side.  He  said  he  would 
never  tolerate  disparagement  of  the  volunteers 
of  the  Republic  who  have  on  so  many  fields  de- 
monstrated their  valour.  *'But  I  am  opposed  to 
the  system  that  throws  the  whole  burden  on  the 
shoulders  of  those  who  spontaneously  respond 


AMERICAATWAR  99 

to  the  need  of  the  country. '  *  He  then  proceeded 
and  simply  shot  holes  in  the  system.  I  stop 
to  say  that  I  have  been  much  impressed  by  the 
air  of  the  House  during  this  debate.  There  is, 
plainly,  a  large  body  of  men  uncommitted  on 
the  question,  who  are  looking  earnestly  for 
light.  It  is  this  body  that  will  decide  the  ques- 
tion, and,  at  the  moment,  it  looks  as  if  argument 
will  win. 

I  said  that  Kahn  shot  holes  in  the  voluntary 
system.  It  had  broken  down  at  each  crisis  in 
the  nation's  history.  In  the  war  of  the  Revolu- 
tion Washington  declared  flatly  for  draft. 
Thomas  Jefferson  later  did  the  same.  In  1812 
hardly  any  troops  came  forward,  under  the 
volunteer  system,  from  the  extreme  eastern 
States.  In  other  words  the  various  parts  of  the 
country  did  not  share  the  burden  equally.  * '  This 
Bill  proposes  to  draw  equivalent  quotas  from 
all  parts  of  our  territory.'' 

The  figures  that  Kahn  produced  on  the  Civil 
War  were  an  amazement  to  one  not  closely  ac- 
quainted with  American  history.  **How  did 
they  get  the  volunteers  of  the  Civil  War  ? "  He 
then  went  on  and  showed  that  after  the  first 
rush  was  over  fabulous  sums  had  to  be  paid  by 
the  States  in  bounties.  Massachusetts  paid  thu^ 
$22,000,000;  Pennsylvania  $43,000,000;  New 
York  $90,000,000.  And  so  on  all  along  the  line, 


100  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

until  the  aggregate  bounties  paid  by  the  States 
as  such  amounted  to  $289,900,000.  IMeantime  the 
Federal  Government  paid  in  the  same  way 
$363,000,000.  The  two  put  togetlier  totalled 
$053,000,000.  ^^The  States  went  into  bidding 
for  men  against  each  other,  and  all  against  the 
Central  Government'*  until  the  bounties  rose  as 
high  as  $1100  a  head.  Thereafter  came  the 
squalid  story  of  bounty-brokers  and  bounty- 
jumpers.  The  bounty-jumper  was  the  man  who 
drew  his  bounty,  then  deserted,  and  started  in 
for  a  new  subvention.  Kahn  cited  one  man, 
ultimately  sent  to  the  penitentiary,  who  con- 
fessed that  he  had  been  paid  bounties  thirty-two» 
times.  The  Draft  Bill  of  the  '60 's  permitted 
paying  for  substitutes.  Wealthy  men  escaped, 
poor  men  had  to  go.  The  first  levy  under  the 
draft  of  that  day  in  the  North  called  300,000 
men;  80,000  of  these  escaped  from  service  by 
substitution  and  commuting.  The  present  bill, 
imposing  compulsory  service  at  the  very  start, 
wdll  affix  no  stigma.  The  conscript  of  to-day 
wall  not  have  the  rating  of  a  convict.  There  will 
be  no  stigma.  The  last  words  I  heard  from 
Kahn,  this  sterling  representative  of  what 
America  has  done  for  its  foreigners,  was:  ^^In 
this  hour  of  its  stress  the  United  States  expects 
every  man  to  do  his  duty." 

Wliatever  may  be  the  fate  of  this  measure 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  101 

of  the  President  (so  far  as  voting  is  concerned), 
this  German-born  citizen  of  the  United  States 
proved  to-day  to  the  hilt  that  it  has  the  weight 
of  argument  on  its  side. 


XV 


INTERVIEW   WITH  HOVELAQUE,  INTELLECTUAL  REP- 
RESENTATIVE   OF    FRANCE 

Washington,  D.  C,  May  5th. 

SCENE :  Spacious  apartment  of  the  mansion 
of  Henry  D.  White,  a  few  stone  throws 
away  from  the  house  occupied  by  the  British 
Mission.  In  the  centre  of  the  room  a  large  ta- 
ble such  as  diplomats  might  gather  about.  A 
military  man,  evidently  a  secretary,  writing, 
smoking,  paying  no  attention  to  us.  Suddenly 
a  tall,  swarthy,  black-bearded  man  enters,  and 
the  company  rises  to  receive  him.  It  is  M.  Ho- 
velaque,  described  to  me  the  other  day  during 
the  landing  of  the  party,  as  the  intellectual 
interpreter  of  France,  designated  in  that  ca- 
pacity to  accompany  the  delegation.  He  speaks 
English  wdth  regal  ease,  as  if  to  the  manner 
born,  and  is  evidently  a  thoroughly  accom- 
plished man. 

M.  Hovelaque  began  by  saying  that  in  their 
original  intention  they  had  come  just  for  a  brief 
stay  of  ten  or  twelve  days,  simply  to  ** salute'' 
the  American  government  and  people.  It  was 
now  clear  that  the  government  of  the  United 

102 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  103 

States  wishes  to  concert  specific  measures  for 
practical  collaboration.  Under  these  circum- 
stances the  stay  of  the  Commission  is  likely  to 
be  considerably  prolonged.  The  Commission 
was  much  struck  with  the  difference  in  the  con- 
ditions obtaining  here,  as  contrasted  with  those 
of  France,  after  more  than  thirty  months  of 
fighting.  ^*  Everything  to-day  in  France  is 
grimy  and  war-worn.'^ 

A  number  of  amusing  and  gratifying  inci- 
dents had  occurred  since  their  arrival  in  Wash- 
ington. When  M.  Viviani  had  visited  Mr.  Mar- 
shall at  the  Capitol,  the  Vice-President  had 
said:  *'The  ambition  of  my  life  is  to  shake 
hands  with  Joffre  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate.  I 
have  been  a  pacifist,  and  never  wished  that  I 
had  had  the  opportunity  of  seeing  Caesar  or 
Napoleon;  but  I  do  wish  to  see  Joffre,  the 
Charles  Martel  of  modem  France.  Charles 
Martel  hammered  the  Mussulmans,  and  Joffre 
has  hammered  the  Huns.*^ 

M.  Hovelaque  gave  us  vivid  pictures  of  the 
members  of  the  Mission.  Marshal  Joffre  was 
born  in  the  far  south  of  France,  but  there  is 
apparently  nothing  or  little  of  the  meridional 
about  him.  The  men  of  the  South  are  dark :  he 
is  fair.  They  are  for  the  most  part  voluble 
and  mercurial:  he  is  reticent,  equable,  well- 
poised.  ^^WTiat  a  tower  of  strength  he  has 
been  to  France  in  these  cruel  days !    What  an 


104  AMERICAATWAR 

immovable  rock,  placing  itself  in  the  path  of  a 
torrent!  Perfect  balance  is  his  chief  charao- 
t eristic,  if  one  except  the  kindness  which  has 
made  him  the  *  father'  of  our  soldiers/* 

M.  Viviani  is  a  sensitive  man  who  abominates 
personal  publicity.  He  wishes  to  let  it  be  known 
that  it  is  France,  not  so  many  individuals,  that 
is  here.  The  French  Minister  of  Justice,  Pre- 
mier at  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  lost  his  beloved 
son  early  in  the  struggle.  **No  one  knows  where 
he  lies.*'  M.  Viviani  is  a  man  of  the  people, 
not  so  much  in  origin  as  in  spirit.  Politically 
a  Socialist,  he  prevented  strikes  on  the  rail- 
roads in  the  early  days  of  the  war  by  personal 
appeals  to  the  men.  M.  Hovelaque  alluded  in 
the  most  glowing  terms  to  Jaures.  He  was  one 
of  the  greatest  statesmen  of  France.  Perhaps 
her  greatest  orator  since  Gambetta.  *' Jaures 
was  my  close  personal  friend.  I  know  he  would 
have  been  heart  and  soul  in  this  war.'*  In  the 
opening  days  he  was  foully  murdered.  The  peo- 
ple were  bewildered.  They  thought  he  might 
have  been  murdered  because  he  was  a  pacifist. 
M.  Viviani  calmed  the  popular  suspicion  by  a 
proclamation  addressed  to  the  people. 

One  of  the  members  of  the  party  is  Colonel 
Fabrey,  *  ^  the  dare-devil  of  France. ' '  ' '  He  hops 
about  now  on  a  beautifully  made  wooden  leg 
— ^made  in  America."  With  1,600  men,  at  a 
critical  moment  in  the  war,  he  held  the  most 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  105 

diflScult  point  on  the  Yser.  For  days  and  days 
he  and  his  men  stood  on  gniard  behind  a  parapet 
built  literally  of  dead  Germans.  ^^  Whenever 
the  bodies  became  too  offensive,  he  and  his 
men  threw  out  hooks  on  the  end  of  long  ropes, 
and  pulled  in  newly-dead  Germans.  At  last  his 
dearest  friend  fell  by  his  side.  The  only  place 
to  bury  him  was  beneath  his  own  feet.  For  a 
week  he  was  separated  from  the  remains  of  his 
comrade  only  by  six  inches  of  soil  directly  un- 
der his  o^Yn  feet.  The  soil  there  is  terrible 
stuff  and  a  foot  down  you  come  to  water. ' ' 

*^It  goes  without  saying,"  went  on  M.  Hove- 
laque,  *'that  the  allied  resources  are  all  pooled. 
What  is  done  for  England,  is  done  for  us.  What 
is  done  for  France,  is  done  for  England. ' ' 

The  German  submarines  make  a  dead  set  on 
ships  bearing  (1)  wheat,  (2)  steel,  (3)  coal,  (4) 
oil.    Their  knowledge  is  prodigious. 

Asked  about  the  probable  conditions  of  Ger- 
many itself  in  the  matter  of  food,  he  made  this 
extremely  interesting  classification.  *  ^  Germany 
consists  to-day  of  these  groups:  (a)  She  has 
approximately  20  million  men  in  arms  and  in 
services  directly  connected  therewith.  These 
are  probably  well-fed;  (b)  there  are  20  million 
peasant  folk,  living  on  the  sell  and  subsisting 
on  produce  they  are  able  to  hoard.  These  are 
getting  on  tolerably  well  yet;  (c)  there  are  7  or 
8  millions  of  the  rich — able  to  get  food  at  a 


106  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

heavy  cost,  sometimes  nimimg  over  to  Holland 
for  a  really  big  meal;  (d)  there  are  20  million 
people  on  the  edge  of  stan^ation.  It  is  by  these 
the  rioting  is  being  done.'*  How  are  the  Ger- 
mans doing  for  clothing?  *^I  salute  the  Ger- 
mans for  their  ingenuity.  They  have  learned 
how  to  make  fibre  out  of  nettles.  They  are 
making  cloth  out  of  paper. '^ 

I  think  all  will  agree  that  this  acoomplished 
Frenchman  gave  us  vivid  glimpses  of  the  war. 


XVI 

THE  RELATION  OF   AMERICA   TO  THE  ORPHANS  AND 
UNIVERSITIES  OF  FRANCE 

Washifigton,  D.  C,  Ma^/  ^^^• 
nnO-NIGHT  at  the  National  Press  Club,  I 
-*■  sat  at  a  table  next  one  at  which  the  fa- 
mous **Joe''  Cannon  was  taking  his  dinner. 
This  remarkable  man,  who  is  described  to  me 
as  being  universally  liked  in  the  House,  but  who, 
I  imagine,  has  ceased  to  exert  any  large  po- 
litical influence,  has  sat  in  twenty-one  con- 
gresses. In  other  words,  the  close  of  the  pres- 
ent congress  will  give  him  a  record  of  forty-two 
years.  He  is  eighty-one  years  of  age.  His  next 
junior  has  sat  in  thirteen  congresses;  so  that 
Cannon  is  easily  the  ranking  man  in  point  of 
length  of  service.  Champ  Clark  comes  about 
third  in  seniority  in  the  lower  chamber.  I  find 
that  Dallinger,  of  New  Hampshire,  outpoints 
Lodge  by  two  years  in  the  senate.  Dallinger 
entered  in  1891,  Lodge  in  1893. 

The  passage  of  the  Selective  Draft  Army  bill 
by  both  branches  of  Congress  signalises  for  one 
thing  a  great  victory  for  Wilson  and  the  Gen- 
eral Staff,  and  for  another  a  remarkably  quick 

107 


108  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

ripening  of  public  opinion  as  to  national  obliga- 
tion. War  and  the  army  are  on  every  lip.  There 
is  universally  evident  the  desire  to  know  ^*what 
we  can  do  quickly  and  effectively  to  help. '  ^  Yes- 
terday on  Pennsylvania  avenue  a  man,  much  the 
worse  for  liquor,  was  wall^ing  near  me.  Pre- 
liminary voting  had  already  shown  that  the 
draft  plan  was  going  to  pass.  The  man  was 
talking  animatedly  to  himself.  **No  more  rich 
man — poor  man.  No  substitutes  this  time. 
We  've  put  an  end  to  that.  * '  On  questioning  him 
I  found  that  he  was  an  old  Civil  War  man,  and 
through  his  mind  were  running  recollections  of 
the  way  the  haphazard  volunteer  system  had 
worked  in  the  old  days.  As  I  entered  the  hotel 
a  few  minutes  afterward  I  heard  an  elderly  man 
say  to  the  clerk:  ^*The  thing  that  I  like  about 
this  draft  business  is  that  it  will  make  Tom, 
Dick  and  Harry  help  George.''  *^Let  George 
do  if  won't  work  under  Wilson ''s  sensible  and 
scientific  plan,  which  by  its  system  of  successive 
units  or  increments  at  once  capitalises  British 
experience  in  this  war  and  offers  the  only  way 
by  which  the  United  States  can  move  effectively 
from  her  present  small  army  to  as  big  a  one 
as  the  situation  may  require. 

I  think  it  would  be  regrettable  if  I  had  not 
an  opportunity  to  give  the  readers  of  this  cor- 
respondence a  summar}^  of  our  second  confer- 
ence with  M.  Hovelaque.    This  man  is  admir- 


AMERICA   AT    WAR  109 

ably  fitted  for  his  role  of  interpreting  intellect- 
ual France  to  America.  Anent  his  English, 
which  is  simply  magnificent,  I  asked  him  if  he 
had  spent  much  time  in  England.  *^No,  but 
when  I  was  a  child,  I  had  an  English  gover- 
ness." For  the  rest  he  is  married  to  an  Ameri- 
can wife,  the  daughter  of  former  Governor  Hig- 
gins,  of  New  York  State.  Both  Missions  are 
well  sprinkled  with  men  who  have  had  Ameri- 
can affiliations.  The  Marquis  de  Chambrun  has 
an  American  w^ife.  Butler,  of  the  English 
party,  is  married  to  Miss  Levering,  of  Phila- 
delphia, He  has  lectured  at  the  University  of 
Penns-ylvania.  **Was  it  in  that  connection  you 
met  Miss  LeveringT'  an  indefatigable  Ameri- 
can pressman  asked.  *  ^  I  'm  afraid  it  was, ' '  But- 
ler replied. 

"Well,  to  come  back  to  M.  Hovelaque's  sec- 
ond interview  at  the  Shoreham.  One  of  the 
greatest  of  the  problems  of  France  is  that  con- 
cerning her  orphans.  The  birth-rate  of  France, 
as  is  well  known,  is  low.  The  loss  of  children, 
particularly  in  the  early  months  of  the  war  in 
the  northeastern  part  of  the  country,  was  tre- 
mendous. Added  to  those  who  died  from  ex- 
posure and  those  who  were  actually  killed,  were 
the  great  numbers  who  succumbed  to  infantile 
cholera.  The  surviving  orphans,  France  pro- 
poses to  foster  not  only  physically,  but  morally 
and  spiritually.     They  are  to  be  made  the  in- 


110  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

dustrial,  intellectual  and  spiritual  wards  of  the 
nation.  *^Xot  of  the  State,  which  may  change 
in  its  character  from  time  to  time,  but  of  the 
nation  in  the  highest  sense.''  An  attempt  is 
to  be  made  to  endow  them  in  such  a  way  that 
they  may  be  reared  by  their  own  mothers,  where 
these  survive.  A  council  for  their  supervision 
is  to  be  created  **  consisting  of  representatives 
of  everything  that  is  most  eminent  in  France." 
For  instance,  those  that  are  the  children  of  par- 
ents who  belonged  to  the  agricultural  popula- 
tion, are  not  simply  going  to  be  trained  as  farm- 
ers, but,  by  special  methods,  with  a  view  to  their 
becoming  agricultural  leaders. 

M.  Hovelaque  then  passed  to  the  intellectual 
relations  of  France  and  America  as  affected 
by  the  war.  The  universities  of  the  two  coun- 
tries have  not  been  sufficiently  in  touch.  Ameri- 
can universities  have  been  profoundly  influ- 
enced by  German  methods.  The  curse  of  Ger- 
man kultur  is  that  it  is  devoid  of  the  broad 
human  spirit.  This  broad  human  spirit  on 
the  other  hand  is  the  grand  characteristic  of 
France.  So  it  was  at  the  time  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, before  that  event,  through  anarchy,  *' tailed 
off,"  to  use  Mr.  Hovelaque 's  own  expression, 
into  Napoleonism.  The  French  revolutionists 
originally  went  out  * '  not  to  annex  territory  but 
to  free  men. ' '  Some  one  has  said :  ' '  Every  man 
has  two  countries:  his  own  and  France."    An 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  111 

attempt  will  be  made  to  provide  facilities 
whereby  students  from  this  continent  can  read- 
ily get  access  to  the  French  universities.  Bur- 
saries for  this  purpose  are  needed.  All  sorts 
of  old  traditional  habits  in  the  French  univer- 
sities must  be  swept  away,  so  as  to  make  pos- 
sible degrees  for  American  students.  There 
should  be  a  cultural  alliance  between  America 
and  France.  (As  I  pointed  out  in  a  despatch 
to  the  Free  Press,  I  expressed  to  M.  Hovelaque 
the  hope  that  we  in  Canada  might  be  brought 
into  this  plan.)  M.  Hovelaque  strongly  em- 
phasized the  spiritual  and  humane  element  in 
French  culture  as  contrasted  with  German  ma- 
terialism. 

M.  Hovelaque  added  an  interesting  postcript, 
so  to  say,  on  the  surprises  of  the  war.  Every 
day  sees  an  alteration  or  rejuvenation  of  meth- 
ods. The  method  of  one  week  is  out  of  date  the 
next.  *^  Every  man  who  has  been  in  this  war 
feels  out  of  it  if  he  is  away  from  the  front  two 
weeks.''  All  of  which  throws  into  relief  the 
folly  of  the  opponents  of  the  Draft  plan  in  Con- 
gress, who  appeal  to  the  example  of  the  Civil 
War  fought  fifty  years  ago. 

Butler,  of  the  English  Mission,  followed  M. 
Hovelaque.  He  recapitulated  for  us  the  English 
party's  impressions  of  their  first  week  in  Amer- 
ica. One  thing  that  struck  them  was  the  **  daz- 
zling swiftness  of  everything  here.''    The  ele- 


112  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

vators  are  an  illustration.  The  ordinary  Eng- 
lish elevator  is  very  leisurely.  There  is  a  par- 
ticularly slow  one  in  the  London  Foreign  Office. 
** Great  Scott/'  broke  out  a  young  American 
riding  in  it,  ^^we  have  trees  in  our  country  that 
grow  faster  than  this  lift  travels.''  Butler 
smiled  happily  as  he  told  this. 


XVII 

THE    VICTOR    OF    THE    MARNE — JOFFEE    AT    SHORT 
RANGE 

Washington,  D,  C,  May  6th. 
T  EEMEMBER  how  stirred  I  was,  between 
-■■  fifteen  and  twenty  years  ago,  in  All  Saints ' 
Churcli,  AVinnipeg,  when  I  heard  Haweis,  an 
English  preacher,  say,  as  he  lifted  a  tiny  hand 
made  to  look  still  more  dainty  by  the  la^vn  that 
encircled  his  wrist,  * '  This  hand  has  clasped  the 
hand  of  Victor  Hugo."  Well,  -the  unimportant 
hand  that  pens  these  words  has  grasped  the 
hand  of  one  greater  than  Victor  Hugo.  This 
morning  in  the  White  Mansion — the  temporary 
home  of  the  French  delegation — I  passed  in  file 
before  Joffre,  the  deathless  victor  of  the  Marne. 
The  Joffre  address  was  prefaced  by  a  brief 
statement  from  M.  Hovelaque:  *^  There  is  not 
a  moment  to  be  lost.  This  war  must  be  waged 
intensively.  The  task  cannot  be  approached  too 
seriously.  The  losses  will  be  terrific  unless 
America  takes  all  possible  precautions  to  pre- 
pare in  the  most  careful,  and  at  the  same  time, 
the  most  rapid  way.  What  we  are  fighting  for 
is  a  durable  peace  on  democratic  conditions." 

113 


114  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

Speaking  of  the  approacliiiig  visit  of  both 
French  and  British  Missions  to  Mount  Vernon, 
he  said:  "I  cannot  give  you  in  advance  the 
speeches  to  be  pronounced  by  M.  Viviani  and  < 
Marshal  Joff re.  Viviani  has  said  to  me :  ^  No,  I 
won't  write  that  in  cold  blood.  I  want  to  speak 
when  the  emotion  of  the  moment  is  upon  mo  at 
that  sacred  spot.'  "  M.  Hovelaque  told  U3  that 
to-morrow  Archbishop  Ireland  is  to  dine  with 
M.  Viviani.  ^^M.  Viviani  wishes  to  meet  lead- 
ers of  all  classes  of  opinion  in  America." 

Incidentally,  I  learnt  this  morning  that  in  an 
earlier  letter  I  misnamed  Colonel  Fabry  the 
''Dare-Devil  of  France."  He  is  known  as  the 
''Blue  Devil  of  France,"  the  allusion,  in  the 
matter  of  colour,  being  to  his  Alpine  uniform. 

"The  Marshal  will  now  come  in."  As  these 
words  from  M.  Hovelaque  were  spoken,  the 
doors  swung  open  and  in  stepped,  with  his  hand 
at  the  salute,  the  great  French  soldier.  The 
room,  crowded  with  one  hundred  journalists, 
broke  into  a  cheer.  I  cannot  do  justice  to  the 
scene,  and  I  shall  just  maJie  a  few  jottings.  Suf- 
fice it  to  say  that  you  cannot  imagine  a  face 
and  mann,er  of  greater  simplicity  aaid  candour 
than  the  face  and  manner  of  Joffre.  I  hope,  for 
the  sake  of  my  French  friends,  that  the  editor 
will  do  me  the  favour  of  setting  up  in  French  the 
occasional  sentences  that  I  quote.  The  official 
statement  afterwards  given  out  at  the  State  De- 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  116 

partment,  which  I  have  not  seen,  is  reported  to 
me  as  being  comparatively  colourless.  I  ex- 
pected that  Joffre's  French  would  show  perhaps 
marked  traces  of  his  southwestern  origin,  but 
such  is  not  the  case.  At  one  or  two  points  there 
was  a  broad  pronunciation  of  words  like  *^bat- 
tre ' '  that  reminded  me  of  the  French-Canadian 
accent.  For  the  rest,  his  French  is  largely  with- 
out special  distinction.  It  is  the  simple  laconic 
language  of  a  man  of  action  not  of  words. 

^*  Je  suis  heureux  d'etre  capable  de  saluer  en 
vous  la  grande  presse  americaine  qui  exerce  une 
influence  si  grande.  Je  vais  lire.  Mes  pensees 
sont  bien  nettes,  et  je  veux  les  exprimer  nette- 
ment.  L'accueil  que  j'ai  regu  me  touche  pro- 
fondement.  Les  soldats  de  la  France  meritent 
Paffection  de  PAmerique.  L'attaque  est  au- 
jourd'hui  plus  forte  que  jamais.  A  cote  de 
I'armee  frangaise  se  trouve  Parmee  britannique, 
dont  je  puis  dire  que  la  creation  et  le  developpe- 
ment  me  remplit  d 'admiration.  (Beside  the 
army  of  France  stands  the  British  army,  whose 
creation  and  development  fills  me  with  admira- 
tion.) Sur  le  sol  frangais  il  y  a  place  pour 
Parmee  des  Etats-Unis.  L'AUemagne  redoute 
cette  eventualite.  L  'armee  f  rangaise  accueillera 
Parmee  americaine  a  bras  ouverts.  (The  French 
army  will  welcome  the  American  army  with 
open  arms.) 

At  the  conclusion  of  his  formal  remarks  M. 


IIG  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

Hovelaque  said  the  Marshal  would  answer  ques- 
tions, which  would  be  translated  for  him.  Ques- 
tion: *' Would  it  be  wise  to  bring  back  Ameri- 
cans now  fighting  in  France  to  train  soldiers 
hereT'  To  this,  this  great  and  simple  man  re- 
plied, consulting  those  about  him :  ^ '  Nos  besoins 
sont  considerables ' ' — '  *  Our  need  is  very  great. ' ' 
It  is  indispensable  that  those  already  there  stay 
there — with  the  exception,  of  course,  of  the  occa- 
sional specialist  who  might  be  brought  over. 
^'Envoyez  le  drapeau  americain  tout  de  suite.'' 
— ^'Send  the  American  flag  over  as  quickly  as 
possible.''  The  plan  followed  by  the  British 
authorities  offers  the  model  which  America 
might  naturally  follow.  Division  after  division 
as  they  are  ready.  **Ceci  resulte  du  bon  sens." 
— ^^This  is  the  dictate  of  plain,  common  sense." 
Asked  about  the  work  of  the  women  of  France, 
as  a  model  for  American  women  in  the  war,  the 
eyes  of  the  good  man  and  the  gi^eat  general 
glistened  as  he  said :  The  message  of  the  French 
women  to  their  husbands,  brothers,  and  lovers 
from  the  beginning  of  the  war  has  been  :  **Nous 
vous  soutiendrons  toujours" — ^^We  will  sup- 
port you  always."  He  then  referred  to  the  ap- 
proach of  the  first  winter  of  the  war.  He  had 
seen  that  his  soldiers  were  without  many  neces- 
saries. *^Je  poussai  un  cri  d'alarme." — ^^I 
sounded  a  signal  of  alarm."     Instantly  *^les 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  117 

femmes  frangaises  se  sont  mises  a  tricoter'' — 
^'The  women  started  in  to  knit." 

Jotfre  was  cheered  to  the  echo  as  he  with- 
drew. 


XVIII 

JOFFRE  AND  VIVIANI  IN  THE  AMERICAN  SENATE 

Washington,  D.  C,  May  7th. 
/^NE  hears  a  great  many  smart  things  said 
^^  here  by  all  kinds  of  people.  Last  night 
Raymond  Swing,  correspondent  of  the  Chicago 
News,  who  was  in  Germany  from  the  outbreak 
of  the  war  until  last  February,  was  speaking 
at  the  National  Press  Club.  The  chairman  in- 
troducing him  said  that  it  was  reported  that 
Mr.  Swing  had  been  on  one  occasion  aboard  a 
boat  plying  in  the  Sea  of  Marmora  when  a  Brit- 
ish submarine  operating  in  those  waters  came 
alongside.  The  submarine  hailed  the  boat  with 
the  question :  *  *  Who  are  you  ? ' '  Mr.  Swing  hur- 
ried to  the  stem  and  answered:  ** Raymond  E. 
Swing  of  the  Chicago  News/'  The  submarine 
at  once  disappeared  in  terror.  Swing,  begin- 
ning to  speak  and  alluding  to  the  picture  he 
was  to  draw  of  internal  German  conditions,  said 
that  his  first  managing  editor  used  to  say  when 
arguing:  ** Facts  or  no  facts,  this  is  the  truth.'' 
He  begged  leave  to  reverse  that  and  put  it: 
** Truth  or  no  truth,  these  are  the  facts."  He 
expected  that  the  best  the  audience  would  say 

118 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  119 

of  him  would  be:  *^He  lies  like  an  eye-witness/' 
Briefly  let  me  cover  a  few  of  the  points  made 
by  Mr.  Swing.  Thanks  to  Hindenburg's  ap- 
peal, made  when  he  replaced  Von  Falkenhayn, 
Germany  is  probably  stronger  in  the  field  this 
season  than  ever  before.  This  has  been  made 
possible  by  the  mobilisation  of  civilians,  and,  in 
particular,  by  the  mobilisation  of  one  million 
women  for  subsidiary  war  purposes.  Trans- 
portation is  the  weakest  link  in  Germany's 
chain.  Rolling  stock  on  Germany's  railroads 
has  run  do\^^l  badly.  When  he  left  in  February 
nearly  all  trains  were  arriving  from  one  to  four 
hours  late.  Germany  would  give  more  for  two 
hundred  American  locomotives  than  for  a  con- 
signment of  any  other  material.  The  backbone 
of  the  German  designs  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Junkers.  They  are  a  hard-headed  body  of  men 
intensely  devoted  to  Prussia,  and  the  most 
scientific  obstructionists  of  democratic  prog- 
ress to  be  found  in  the  world.  He  had 
visited  at  a  typical  Junker  estate  in  Meck- 
lenburg. His  host  had  shown  him  family 
records  disclosing  the  fact  that  fully  one-half 
of  the  male  members  of  his  line  had  fallen  in 
actual  fighting  at  one  time  or  another  for 
Prussia.  America  would  do  well  to  attack  the 
Junkers  rather  than  the  Emperor  as  such. 

The  French  delegation  received  a  great  wel- 
come in  the  Senate  to-day.    Again  the  corridors 


liiO  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

were  studded  with  police  and  secret  service  rnen. 
The  galleries  were  crowded.  Lodge  arid  Hitch- 
cock were  deputed  by  the  Vice-President  to  es- 
cort JolTre  and  Viviani  into  the  Chamber.  Ad- 
miral Chocheprat,  Ambassador  Jusserand,  and 
M.  Hovelaque  occupied  the  Vice-President's 
dais  with  the  two  principals.  In  the  applause 
that  attended  the  entrance  I  noted  that  La  Fol- 
lette  joined  without  any  appearance  of  reserve. 
The  Vice-President  said  that  the  Senate  **  which 
had  once  received  Lafayette,  now,  about  a  hun- 
dred years  later,  w^elc.omes  again  great  rep- 
resentatives of  France.''  When  the  Senators, 
and  a  good  many  members  of  the  House  infor- 
mally present,  had  been  presented  to  the  visi- 
tors, a  pretty  incident  occurred:  the  pages  of 
the  Senate — grading  down  from  tall  youths  to 
tiny  boys — passed  before  Joffre  and  Viviani, 
who  shook  hands  with  each. 

It  had  not  been  expected  that  there  would 
be  any  speaking,  but  Vice-President  Marshall 
called  on  Viviani.  The  French  Minister  of  Jus- 
tice said:  (Translation): 

**  Through  us  who  are  human  and  shall  die, 
it  is  France  that  you  see.  I  was  deeply  moved 
in  crossing  the  threshold  of  this  your  House  of 
Legislature  and  I  ask  myself  what  can  be  the 
thoughts  of  those  autocrats  in  Germany  if  they 
still  retain  the  faculty  to  think.  The  two  na- 
tions of  which  we  are  the  representatives  will 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  121 

never  rest  until  tlie  security  of  democracy  has 
been  re-established  [alluding  to  Wilson's  phrase 
^to  make  the  world  safe  for  democracy'].  We 
are  united  to  get  rid  of  the  heavy  oppression 
of  absolutism.'' 

Vice-President  Marshall  essayed  to  close  the 
function  by  using  the  words :  ^ '  As  we  said  Hail, 
so  now  we  say  Farewell,  and  yet  again.  Please 
God,  Hail!"  The  party  was  leaving  the  ros- 
trum, but  the  Chamber  and  galleries  broke  into 
an  ovation  to  Joffre,  who  was  called  upon  in- 
sistently. When  the  Marshal  succeeded  in 
making  himself  heard,  he  simply  said:  *^I — do 
— not — speak — English.  Vivent  les  Etats- 
Unis." 

When  the  session  resumed  La  Follette,  who 
is  excoriated  unanimously  by  the  men  in  the 
press  gallery  as  a  publicity  hunter  of  the  first 
order,  spoke  to  depleted  Chamber  and  galleries 
on  his  amendment  for  the  submission  of  the 
Draft  Army  Bill  to  a  referendum.  He  spoke 
vigorously  and  with  passion,  but  with  no  air 
of  commanding  any  section  worth  while  either 
of  the  Senate  or  of  public  opinion.  Lincoln,  he 
said,  had  resorted  to  the  Draft  only  in  the  third 
year  of  the  Civil  War.  ^^  Canada  has  not  even 
considered  conscription.  Australia  has  rejected 
it  by  popular  vote.  And  yet  the  America  of 
to-day,  thirty  days  after  the  Declaration  of 
War,  adopts  the  Draft." 


XIX 

SPEEDING-UP   OF   AMERICAN   PRODUCTION  FOB  WAR- 
TIME 

(First  Article) 

Wasliingt07i,  D.  C,  May  8th. 
T  TOOK  dinner  to-night  at  the  National  Press 
^  Club  with  Blair,  of  the  Associated  Press, 
who  has  lived  twenty-four  years  in  Germany, 
and  who  came  out  with  Gerard,  the  American 
Ambassador.  He  says  his  impressions  coincide 
substantially  with  those  given  by  Spring,  which 
I  have  referred  to  in  an  earlier  letter.  His 
party  traversed  France  by  rail,  entered  Spain, 
and  sailed  for  the  United  States  from  Corunna ! 
He  says  Britain  is  far  the  worst  hated  of  the 
allies  in  Germany.  Keason :  the  Germans  recog- 
nise that  she  has  become  the  predominant  mem- 
ber of  the  Entente  alliance,  and  that  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  war  is  due  to  her  persistence. 
My  General  is  happy  to-night.  The  Senate 
amended  the  Army  bill  by  providing  for  the 
prompt  despatch  of  four  infantry  divisions — 
about  120,000  men,  the  General  says — to  France. 
The  bill  now  goes  to  conference  between  the 

122 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  123 

Chambers,  and  to-night  it  is  rumoured  that  the 
House  conferees  are  showing  a  disposition  to 
accept  the  Senate  amendment.  The  newspapers 
to-day  also  indicate  that  the  White  House  is 
considering  yielding  to  the  popular  demand  that 
an  expeditionary  force  be  sent  without  delay 
to  French  soil.  If  this  policy  is  decided  upon 
great  and  honest  old  Joffre  will  have  had  a  good 
.deal  to  do  with  it.  He  has  not  disguised  the 
eagerness  of  his  desire  that  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  should  be  seen  at  the  earliest  possible 
moment  in  his  native  country.  The  General 
thinks  that  this  will  mean  inevitably  that  Roose- 
velt will  go.  This  last,  however,  is  not  to  be 
banked  upon  till  the  man  at  the  White  House 
actually  gives  the  word.  The  General  having 
referred  to  the  capable  character  of  the  men 
who  would  respond  to  a  call  from  Roosevelt, 
I  said :  *  ^  You  think  that  with  their  present  ex- 
perience they  could  learn  the  new  fighting  con- 
ditions  on   French   soil  within   a  very   short 

time  r '  ^  ^  By ,  they  'd  absorb  the  whole  thing 

in  five  days.  I'll  be  darned  if  they  wouldn't  in- 
spect the  German  trenches  inside  of  forty-eight 
hours." 

On  the  wired  instructions  of  the  editor  of  the 
Free  Press,  I  have  endeavoured  to  see  Secretary 
Houston,  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture,  as 
to  measures  being  taken  to  accelerate  food  pro- 
duction in  America.    Like  all  the  other  depart- 


124  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

ment  heads,  however,  he  is  up  to  the  neck  in 
work,  and  I  have  not  been  able  to  get  through  to 
liim.  To-day,  however,  I  have  attended  the 
meetings  of  governors  and  state  representa- 
tives with  the  Council  of  National  Defence,  and 
shall,  consequently,  be  able  to  give  here  some 
of  the  material  that  I  might  have  got  from  Sec- 
retary Houston. 

The  morning  meeting  to-day  was  held  in  the 
office  of  the  Secretary  for  War,  who  presided; 
the  afternoon  session  took  place  in  the  Munsey 
building.  This  morning  the  speakers  were: 
Baker,  Secretary  for  War;  Daniels,  Secretary 
for  the  Na\y ;  Lane,  Secretary  for  the  Interior ; 
McKane,  Adjutant  General,  and  Crowder, 
Judge  Advocate  General ;  Scott,  Chief  of  Staff, 
and  the  other  members  of  the  Council  of  Na- 
tional Defence  were  also  present. 

The  war  secretary  said  the  government  was 
not  relying  on  itself  alone  in  this  emergency. 
The  best  business  brains  in  the  country  were 
being  called  to  Washington.  America  is  *^the 
greatest  undisturbed  food  producer  in  the 
world.''  She  must  now  take  the  needs  of  her 
allies  into  consideration  along  with  her  own. 
He  pleaded  for  the  recognition  of  the  demo- 
cratic character  of  the  draft  by  which  it  is  pro- 
posed to  raise  the  bulk  of  the  new  army.  Se- 
lection of  men  to  be  drafted  will  proceed  in  con- 
sultation with  state  authorities.    Heads  of  fami- 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  125 

lies  will  be  exempted  in  tlie  early  stages  of  the 
war.  Men  will  not  be  taken  from  indispensable 
tasks ;  but  there  will  be  no  exemption  of  whole 
classes.  This  was  taken  to  mean  that  even  agri- 
culturists will  not  be  exempted  as  a  class.  ^^In 
every  indispensable  vocation  there  are  some  in- 
dividual men  who  are  not  themselves  indispen- 
sable." *^We  are  going  to  wage  this  war  not 
with  our  right  hand,  nor  with  our  left  hand — 
but  with  both  hands." 

Secretary  Daniels  of  the  Navy  Department, 
said  that  the  navy  has  now  enlisted  up  to  the 
full  strength  authorised  by  law.  I  think  this 
strength  is  about  90,000  men.  *^In  thirty-two 
days  we  have  enlisted  more  men  than  were  in 
the  navy  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Spanish- Ameri- 
can War  (19  years  ago).  Legislation  already 
drafted  is  to  be  passed  this  week  authorising 
expansion  of  navy  enlistment  to  150,000  men. 
Referring  to  the  submarine,  he  said:  **We  know 
to-day  [evidently  alluding  to  specific  informa- 
tion brought  by  the  British  delegates]  that  the 
submarine  menace  is  graver  than  the  most 
astute  expert  dreamed  a  year  ago  it  could  be- 
come." 

Adjutant  General  McKane  pointed  out  that 
approximately  25,000  officers,  additional  to 
those  now  available,  will  need  to  be  trained  for 
the  first  increment  of  the  army.  These  will  be 
assembled  in  14  training  camps,  which  will  ac- 


126  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

commodate  2,500  each.  It  will  be  seen  that  this 
aggregate  provides  for  some  weeding  out.  The 
training  of  these  potential  officers  will  begin 
actively  on  i\Iay  15.  None  will  get  commissions 
until  the  end  of  the  three  months'  training 
period. 

Judge  Advocate  General  Crowder  described 
the  plan  for  compulsory  registration,  prior  to 
the  operation  of  the  Selective  Draft,  as  *^  super- 
vised Decentralisation."  The  registration  will 
be  done  in  the  ordinary  voting  precinct  of  the 
county.  A  County  Board  will  assemble  results 
for  the  county.  The  counties  will  be  supervised 
by  the  state  governor ;  while  the  federal  author- 
ity will  supervise  the  states.  Eegistration  will 
occur  throughout  the  entire  country  on  one  day. 
Crowder  said  there  was  no  reason  why  registra- 
tion may  not  be  completed  on  the  tenth  day 
after  the  Army  bill  is  signed  by  the  President. 

Franklin  Lane,  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  who 
is  a  Canadian  by  birth,  and  who  is  spoken  of  on 
all  hands  as,  with  the  possible  exception  of  Mc- 
Adoo  of  the  Treasury,  the  ablest  man  in  Wil- 
son's cabinet,  sounded  the  most  masterful  note 
struck  this  morning.  Under  his  jurisdiction 
comes  the  Patent  Department,  and  he  said  they 
were  summoning  to  the  aid  of  the  nation  the 
best  inventive  genius  of  the  United  States.  He 
was  hopeful  that  this  massed  ability  would  sup- 
ply a  way  of  meeting  the  submarine,  which, 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  127 

they  were  told,  accounted  for  400,000  allied  ton- 
nage last  week.  During  the  Civil  War  inven- 
tion after  invention  was  struck  off  ^'by  the 
magic  mind  of  man.''  During  a  conversation 
he  had  had  recently  mth  a  group  of  inventors 
it  had  been  suggested  that  it  might  be  possible, 
by  means  of  an  electrical  wave  generated  in  the 
ship  itself,  either  to  deflect  the  torpedo  or  to 
cause  its  explosion  before  it  reached  the  ship's 
side. 

Lane  put  the  principles  of  the  war  in  a  very 
effective  w^ay  from  the  American  point  of  view. 
*^We  may  find  a  way  of  rescuing  ourselves.  I 
say  ^ourselves.'  This  is  just  as  truly  our  war 
as  it  is  that  of  Britain  or  France.  Those  coun- 
tries are  fighting  for  principles  invented  by  us. 
We  call  England  the  Mother  country.  But  we 
ourselves  are  the  Mother  country  so  far  as  the 
principles  being  fought  for  by  the  Allies,  are 
concerned."  Alluding  to  the  criticism  which 
would  probably  come  and  which  the  Administra- 
tion regarded  as  inevitable,  he  referred  play- 
fully to  Matthew  Arnold.  Arnold  had  spent  his 
life  in  criticising  the  institutions  of  his  day. 
WTien  news  of  Arnold's  death  was  carried  to 
Andrew  Lang,  the  latter  said:  ^^Poor  Arnold, 
poor  Arnold,  I'm  sorry  for  him.  He  won't  like 
God." 

The  Department  of  the  Interior  is  appealing 
to  farmers  to  organise  around  machines,  trac- 


128  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

tors,  tliresliing  macliines,  and  the  like.  These 
must  be  treated  in  the  various  communities  as 
coninmnity  property.  The  farmers  are  being 
asked  to  organise  into  companies,  and  plough, 
seed  and  harvest  in  flying  squadrons,  moving 
across  the  country.  The  farmers  must  *'play 
the  game''  together.  They  must  not  count 
on  the  approaching  exhaustion  of  Germany. 
Hoover,  head  of  the  American  Food  Board,  had 
told  him  that,  with  a  reasonable  crop  this  sea- 
son, Germany  has  provisions  that  will  last 
her  for  two  years.  She  has  still  eighteen  mil- 
lion cattle,  and  a  good  supply  of  iron  and  coal. 
I  find  I  have  too  much  material  for  one  let- 
ter, and  shall  ask  the  editor  to  use  the  same 
caption  for  this  and  its  successor. 


XX 


SPEEDING-UP  OF  AMEEICAN  PKODUCTION   FOR   WAE- 
TIME 

(Second  Article) 

Washington,  D.  C,  May  8th. 

AS  I  entered  the  room  in  the  Mnnsey  build- 
ing, where  the  National  Defence  Council 
was  conducting  its  conference  with  Governors 
and  State  representatives,  Wilson,  Secretary  of 
Labour,  was  just  concluding  his  speech.  All  I 
heard  from  him  was  a  warning  to  the  State  au- 
thorities to  be  careful  about  the  employment  of 
convict  labour.  *^ Don't  attempt  to  use  it  on  the 
farms.  The  people  won't  stand  for  it.  Use  it, 
for  example,  on  the  roads." 

President  Pierson,  of  Iowa  Agricultural  Col- 
lege, now  associated  with  the  National  Council 
of  Defence,  representing  Secretary  Houston, 
was  the  chief  speaker.  The  stock  of  food  prod- 
ucts in  the  United  States  is  at  a  low  level.  On 
the  other  hand  the  need  abroad  is  unlimited. 
An  expert  before  the  Agricultural  Committee 
of  the  House  said  the  other  day:  ^^It  will  take 
two  years  of  bumper  crops  in  America  to  fill 

129 


130  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

the  ribs  of  Europe — animals  as  well  as  men/' 

The  Secretary  of  Agriculture  has  recom- 
mended to  Congress  that  an  appropriation  of 
$25,000,000  be  made  for  the  purpose  of  a  na- 
tional food  survey.  The  major  objects  of  the 
Department  are:  (1)  the  increasing  of  produc- 
tion, (2)  the  eliminating  of  waste,  (3)  the  better 
distributing  of  food  products. 

With  respect  to  the  labor  supply  Pierson  said 
that  the  Department  of  Agriculture  would  en- 
deavour, through  a  representative  appointed  for 
each  state,  to  ascertain  the  labour  requirements 
and  to  assist  in  placing  labour  that  is  available. 
There  are  in  the  United  States  at  least  a  half 
million  retired  farmers  who  would  be  able  to  as- 
sist in  the  present  emergency.  Similarly  there 
are  two  million  boys,  say  from  fifteen  to  nine- 
teen, who  have  hitherto  taken  little  share  in  na- 
tional production. 

There  is  fear  in  some  quarters  that  over-pro- 
duction will  occur,  and  that  prices  will  slump. 
Secretary  Houston  can  see  no  danger  of  such 
over-production.  He  has  recommended  to  Con- 
gress that  the  Council  of  National  Defence  be 
armed  with  power  to  fix  guaranteed  minimum 
prices  for  staple  products.  It  should  also  be 
given  authority  to  fix  maximum  prices,  in  order 
to  prevent  hoarding,  gambling,  and  manipulat- 
ing of  every  kind. 

There  are  2,900  rural  counties  in  the  United 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  131 

States;  1,700  of  these  have  one  agricultural 
agent  each.  It  is  proposed  to  appoint  such  an 
agent  in  each  of  the  remaining  1,200  counties. 
These  agents  will  be  the  ^^ minute  men*'  in  the 
speeding  up  process.  It  is  estimated  that  30  per 
cent,  of  the  food  products  going  into  American 
homes,  is  wasted.  It  is  similarly  estimated,  in 
.Pierson's  words,  that  *^on  a  pleasant  July  day'' 
insects  in  the  United  States  eat  up  10,000,000 
dollars'  worth  of  foodstuff.  It  is  proposed  to 
appoint  in  each  county  a  woman  agent  to  con- 
sult with  women  regarding  household  economy. 
The  household  waste  of  America  is  computed  by 
the  department  at  700,000,000  dollars  per  an- 
num, which  equals  seven  dollars  per  capita  of 
the  population.  Question:  *'Is  that  all  their 
waste  (waist)  r'    Laughter. 

Each  state  either  has,  or  will  be  asked  to 
create,  a  state  food  committee  or  Committee  of 
Public  Safety.  ^^This  will  be  the  means  of 
communication  between  the  Federal  authority 
and  the  different  states."  Each  county  in  turn 
wdll  have  its  food  organisation.  These  state  and 
county  committees  will  ultimately  probably 
make  a  complete  survey  of  labour  and  industrial 
man-power.  The  department  thinks,  however, 
that  this  census  of  man-power  should  be  de- 
ferred until  the  Draft  Registration  is  out  of 
the  way.  (A  man  representing  Texas  here  re- 
ported that  the  acreage  increase  in  his  state 


132  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

this  season  would  be  from  25  to  40  per  cent.) 

Question :  Does  the  Department  purpose  put- 
ting a  ban  right  away  on  excess  food  consump- 
tion ?  Answer :  Not  yet,  though  the  Department 
is  making  a  careful  study  of  European  regula- 
tions. It  is  disposed  to  *Ury  out'*  first  a  cam- 
paign for  the  voluntary  elimination  of  waste. 

In  view  of  the  threatened  shortage  of  tin  cans 
and  glass  jars,  the  Department  of  Commerce  is 
urging  the  extensive  use  of  paper  containers. 
Householders  are  also  being  advised  to  make  as 
much  use  as  possible  of  sealed  crocks,  which 
were  largely  utilised  in  the  Civil  War  period. 
Drjdng  is  also  being  recommended  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  canning — as,  for  example,  in  the  case 
of  corn. 

Question :  Has  the  Department  considered  the 
establishment  of  municipal  canning  plants — the 
sort  that  cost  from  $200  to  $400  apiece?  These 
can  be  operated  by  High  School  girls  under  the 
direction  of  teachers,  and  are  extensively  in 
vogue  in  the  South  Atlantic  States.  Answer: 
The  plan  is  feasible,  and  is  being  considered. 

I  have  made  no  attempt  to  arrange  this  mate- 
rial, but  have  left  it  in  a  rather  rough,  inchoate 
condition,  because  I  think  it  conveys  better  in 
that  form  an  impression  of  the  swarming  activ- 
ity that  is  under  way  here.  Any  one  can  see 
that  there  may  easily  be  duplication  and  con- 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  133 

fusion  of  machinery  at  the  outset;  but  the  su- 
perb organising  ability  of  the  country  may  be 
trusted  to  elicit  harmony  without  great  loss  of 
time. 


XXI 

ORGANISATION  OF  THE   NATION   ON  WAR  BASIS  PRO- 
CEEDS APACE 

Washington,  D.  C,  May  8th. 
npHE  National  Council  of  Defence  Confer- 
^  ence  proceeded  this  morning.  First  speak- 
er, Willard,  president  of  the  Baltimore  and 
Ohio  railroad.  His  whole  speech  was  couched 
in  terms  of  the  people's  interest,  and  produced 
the  most  cordial  feeling.  His  company  had  been 
asked  to  supply  material  for  rehabilitating  1,500 
miles  of  French  lines.  They  had  been  asked 
to  send  a  committee  to  inspect  Russian  roads. 
Its  members  will  go  in  a  few  days.  It  would 
be  necessary  for  the  American  roads  to  retrench 
in  men  and  plant.  For  example,  there 
are  6,500  men  now  employed  uselessly  as 
a  result  of  ^'full-crew"  laws.  He  suggested 
releasing  these  men,  just  during  the  emer- 
gency of  the  war,  without  prejudice.  One 
thousand  locomotives  are  being  built  in 
America  for  France  and  Eussia.  We  must 
build  more  and  more  for  our  allies,  and  get 
on   as   best   we   can    ourselves.      Shippers    in 

134 


AMERICAATWAR  136 

this  country  now  have  48  free  hours  in  which 
to  load  and  48  hours  in  which  to  unload  a  car. 
Suggestion:  Reduce  this  to  24.  This  alone 
would  release  645,000  cars  for  one  trip  each 
year.  In  Germany  shippers  have  only  six  hours 
free.  Passenger  schedules  must  be  readjusted. 
Passenger  trains  in  America  operate  570,000,- 
000  miles  a  year.  This  should  be  reduced.  Per- 
fectly feasible  reductions  on  parallel  lines  can 
be  effected  releasing  4,000  passenger  locomo- 
tives for  freight.  The  railways  will  do  this, 
provided  the  people's  consent  is  forthcoming. 
Waterways  and  electric  roads  must  be  better 
co-ordinated  with  rail  transportation.  For  in- 
stance, more  use  must  be  made  of  the  Missis- 
sippi for  getting  coal  to  the  northwest. 

Gifford,  the  Secretary  of  the  National  Defence 
Council,  gave  a  full  account  of  the  organisation 
of  this  body.  It  has  been  at  work  only  since 
December  last.  It  consists  of  six  Cabinet  mem- 
bers, aided  by  an  advisory  committee  of  seven 
business  men.  Under  the  law  this  body  has  the 
power  to  create  auxiliary  committees.  This 
system  of  auxiliary  committees  is  a  plan  where- 
by the  national  government  is  proceeding  to  get 
the  assistance  of  the  selected  brains  of  the  coun- 
try. The  members  of  these  committees  are  serv- 
ing without  pay.  The  significance  of  the  scheme 
lies  in  the  fact  that  it  means  that  this  nation  is 
rising  to  meet  the  challenge  of  autocracy,  not 


136  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

with  sentiment  alone,  but  with  an  assemblage  of 
its  producing  and  organising  power. 

Auxiliary  committees  have  already  been  con- 
stituted on 

(1)  coal  production, 

(2)  shipping, 

(3)  science  and  research. 

For  example  this  committee  is  holding 
to-morrow  a  meeting  of  university  presi- 
dents called  from  all  parts  of  the  country. 

(4)  aircraft  production, 

(5)  women's  defence  committee, 

(6)  commercial  economy  board. 

This  committee  will  consider  possible 
economy  in  cost  of  distribution,  as  for  in- 
stance in  the  matter  of  delivery  of  mer- 
chandise to  retail  buyers.  Later  in  the 
day,  adverting  to  this  subject,  Redfield, 
Secretary  for  Commerce,  pointed  out  that, 
whereas  the  annual  expense  bill  for  freight 
into  and  out  of  the  city  of  Washington  is 
seven  million  dollars,  cartage  in  the  city 
itself  costs  eight  and  a  half  millions. 

(7)  Munitions  board. 

The  purchasing  departments  of  the 
army  and  navy  are  represented  on  this 
committee,  which  meets  every  morning. 
Gifford  added,  rather  significantly,  I 
thought,  *'this  means  a  ministry  of  muni- 
tions in  embryo.'' 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  137 

(8)  Committee  on  food  supply. 

Hoover  is  to  be  head  of  this.  The  pa- 
pers to-day  announce  his  arrival  at  New 
York,  and  his  immediate  departure  for 
Washington. 

(9)  Naval  Consulting  Board,  which  will  pass 

on  suggested  inventions. 

(10)  Army  Supply  Committee. 

Hitherto  local  quartermasters  have 
awarded  contracts  for  supplies.  Hence- 
forward local  committees  of  business  men 
will  sit  with  these  officers  and  pass  on  con- 
tracts.   Finally 

(11)  a    Committee    representing    the    various 

goverimient  departments  has  been  con- 
stituted. 

This  meets  every  day,  and  its  business 
will  be  to  prevent  clashing  of  interests  as 
between  the  Departments  in  the  matter  of 
national  defence.     The  states  are  being 
.    asked  to  form  their  own  Councils  of  De- 
fence.   Many  of  them  have  already  done 
so.     Finally,  local  or  miniature  defence 
councils  are  to  be  formed;  so  that  there 
will  in  the  near  future  be  defence  councils 
running  from  township  or  school  district 
right  up  to  the  federal  government. 
In  the  afternoon  Redfield,  of  the  Department 
of  Commerce,  spoke  on  the  war  activities  of  his 
department.    He  pleaded  for  vision  and  science 


138  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

in  the  work  of  the  nation.  *^  Vision  and  science 
will  save  America,  and  they  are  the  only  things 
that  will.'*  *^ Germany  has  done  what  she  has, 
because  she  has  applied  science  to  production 
and  to  the  prevention  of  waste."  Carlyle  said  : 
^ '  Produce,  in  God 's  name,  produce. ' '  This,  said 
Redfield,  should  be  written  over  the  door  of 
every  American  home.  I  pause  to  say  that  these 
two  days  have  seen  no  less  than  five  members 
of  the  national  government  addressing  to  ten 
governors  and  to  leading  representatives  of 
every  state  in  the  union,  not  only  clarion  calls 
to  co-ordinated  activity,  but  detailed  specifica- 
tions as  to  how  this  co-ordination  is  to  be  ef- 
fected. Redfield  said  his  Department  had  per- 
fected an  electrical  machine  for  taking  the  next 
census  without  writing  a  word.  This  machine, 
I  understood  him  to  say,  will  be  used  for  the  ap- 
proaching military  registration.  The  Depart- 
ment of  Commerce  is  instructing  the  people  in 
the  use  of  new  sea  foods.  Six  months  ago  a 
certain  fish  was  unused.  To-day  one  million 
pounds  of  it  a  month  are  used.  Here  the  gov- 
ernment has  succeeded  in  fixing  the  price.  It 
provides  a  label,  and  does  the  advertising  of 
the  new  food  on  condition  that  a  price  of  ten 
cents  a  can  is  observed.  Price  raised  without 
permission,  right  to  use  of  label  withdrawn.  A 
ten  cent  can  makes  a  meal  for  three  people. 
The  readiness  of  the  Department  for  the  decla- 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  1S9 

ration  of  war  was  indicated  by  the  circumstance 
that  it  turned  forty-five  ships  under  its  control 
over  to  the  Navy  Department  for  mine-laying 
within  fourteen  minutes  after  the  declaration  of 
the  state  of  war  became  effective.  Toward  the 
close  of  his  speech,  Eedfield  made  a  very  *^ cute'' 
observation.  ^  ^  We  are  the  wasters  of  the  world. 
I.  W.  W.  should  be  made  to  read,  Industrious 
Wasters  of  the  World.  So  translated,  it  de- 
scribes the  American  people  as  they  have  been 
hitherto.  But  we  must  change  all  that.''  The 
boys  of  the  city  of  Washington  made  $5,700  out 
of  old  papers  carried  to  school  in  a  period  of 
six  months.  Cattle-fodder  can  be  made  out  of 
saw-dust.  Before  the  war  * '  Germany  was  dye- 
ing the  world."  To-day  800,000  tons  of  osage- 
orange — so  I  caught  it — are  being  utilised  in 
this  country  per  annum  to  make  a  certain  yel- 
low dye.  The  osage-orange  was  regarded  as  a 
nuisance  before  the  supply  of  German  dyes  was 
cut  off. 


XXII 

WOODEOW    WILSON    AND    ARTHUR   BALFOUR   IN    THE 
HOUSE  OF  REPRESENTATIVES 

Washington,  D.  C,  May  8th. 
TF  Joffre  isn't  spoiled  by  America  it  will  be 
-*■  because  he  can't  be.  Everything  he  has 
done  in  this  country  to  date  has  been  just  right. 
It  is  because  his  nature  is  thoroughly  sound  and 
wholesome.  I  should  dearly  like  some  time  in 
the  future,  say  ten  years  from  now,  to  come 
upon  him  in  a  simple  fishing  boat  in  the  Bay 
of  Biscay,  or  pruning  some  humble  vine  on  the 
slopes  of  the  Pyrenees,  and  find  him  still  the 
same  as  he  has  been  as  victor  of  the  Marne  or 
as  the  lion  of  America. 

Reverting  to  Redfield's  smart  remark  about 
*'the  Industrious  Wasters  of  the  World,''  the 
lavishness  of  this  country  is  prodigious.  A  very 
interesting  man  gave  me  some  instances  the 
other  night.  A  big  saloon  keeper  in  New  York 
recently  told  him  of  three  men  who  had  a  few 
evenings  before  started  in  and  spent  $900  in 
his  place  in  one  night.  He  told  me  of  bachelor 
apartments  he  had  lately  been  in  in  New  York 

140 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  141 

that  cost  their  tenants  $5,500  a  year.  The 
same  man  talking  of  the  war  taxation  proposals 
now  approacliing  Congress,  said  that  in  his 
town  of  Akron,  Ohio,  there  are  six  firms,  who, 
if  the  present  tentative  plans  materialise,  will 
be  mulcted  in  aggregate  war  contributions  to 
the  tune  of  nine  million  dollars.  **Will  they 
"squeal!''    ^^ Not  a  bit  of  if 

Last  night  as  I  was  sitting  waiting  for  Ma- 
jor Spendley-Clay,  of  the  British  Mission,  to 
begin  to  speak  at  the  National  Press  Club,  the 
Hawaiian  delegate  to  Congress  entered,  and, 
happily  for  me,  sat  down  next  to  me.  I  **  en- 
gaged ' '  him.  Speaks  English  perfectly.  He  is 
nephew,  not  son — as  I  had  been  informed — to  a 
former  king  of  the  islands.  He  is  the  cousin  of 
the  well  known  deposed  Queen  Liliuokalani 
(whether  this  name  is  spelt  correctly  or  not,  I 
cannot  tell.  The  delegate's  name  I  really  can- 
not undertake  to  transcribe.)  Alaska  and 
Hawaii  are  now  the  only  territories  left  to  be 
represented  in  Congress.  The  Hawaiian  dele- 
gate draws  the  same  salary  as  an  ordinary  rep- 
resentative, can  move  resolutions,  and  speak, 
but  cannot  vote  or  raise  a  point  of  order.  Porto 
Rico  and  the  Philippines  are  represented  in 
Congress  by  commissioners,  who  sit  by  virtue 
of  resolutions  of  the  House.  The  Hawaiian 
delegate  represents  243,000  people,  of  whom 
85,000  are  in  Honolulu.     He  says  the  islands 


142  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

have  100,000  Asiatics  among  their  population, 
of  whom  four  or  live  hundred,  having  been  bom 
in  Hawaii,  have  the  vote.  He  is  proud  of 
Haw^aii,  and  completely  satisfied  with  American 
treatment  of  her.  He  says  his  people  have  ad- 
vanced from  savagery  to  civilisation  in  100 
years.  Thirty-four  years  after  the  arrival  of 
American  missionaries  **we  had  a  written  lan- 
guage, compulsory  education,  and  a  constitu- 
tional king.  ^  ^  He  volunteered  the  extraordinary 
statement  that  only  two  per  cent,  of  the  inhabi- 
tants are  illiterate. 

To  date  the  present  Congress  has  shown  a 
fine  temper,  on  the  war  particularly.  One 
thing  that  pleases  me  is  the  independent  and 
new  alignment  that  occurs  on  questions  as  they 
arise.  There  is  no  evidence  of  a  ^^bloc"  of  any 
kind.  I  hope  some  of  the  readers  of  these  let- 
ters will  recall  that  in  an  early  message  I  sug- 
gested that  the  Censorship  bill  would  probably 
have  **its  fangs  dra^\Ti."  Yesterday  by  a  de- 
cisive vote  in  the  house  the  obnoxious  clause  was 
changed  completely  in  character.  Of  course, 
as  the  war  situation  grows  more  tense,  and  if 
the  newspapers  do  not  show  themselves  ani- 
mated by  a  high  sense  of  responsibility,  the 
President's  demands  may  be  more  fully  ac- 
ceded to.  Kahn,  Mann,  Republican  House  leader 
and  Swagar  Sherley,  of  Kentucky,  all  of  whom 
were  protagonists  on  the  President's  side  in 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  143 

the  Draft  bill,  stoutly  opposed  the  administra- 
tion's censorship  clause. 

Prior  to  the  arrival  of  Mr.  Balfour  at  the 
House  to-day  I  heard  Cannon  for  the  first  time. 
The  American  octogenarian,  whose  parliamen- 
tary career,  by  the  way,  almost  exactly  equals 
in  length  that  of  the  British  Commissioner, 
spoke  in  vigorous  criticism  of  the  Federal  Re- 
serve banking  system.  The  Justices  of  the  Su- 
preme Court,  who  came  from  time  to  time  into 
the  Chamber,  included  White,  the  Chief  Justice, 
and  Brandeis.  Brandeis  is  a  small,  dark,  wiry 
looking  man,  offering  a  marked  contrast  to  his 
portly  chief.  During  the  waiting  interval  a  tele- 
gram to  the  House  was  read  from  the  President 
of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  of  Eoumania,  ex- 
tending to  the  American  Legislature  its  ^ '  felici- 
tations les  plus  chaleureuses'^  on  the  entry  of 
America  into  the  war.  After  the  reading  was 
finished  there  were  impatient  cries  for  an  Eng- 
lish version,  to  which  Champ  Clark  replied: 
*^ Can't  read  a  thing  you  haven't  got."  About 
five  minutes  before  Balfour  arrived,  President 
"Wilson  entered  the  President's  gallery,  accom- 
panied by  Mrs.  Wilson  and  Mrs.  McAdoo.  He 
rose  twice  to  respond  to  greetings  of  the 
crowded  house. 

It  was  noteworthy  that  Mr.  Balfour  began 
by  addressing  ^^ Ladies  and  gentlemen  of  the 
House  of  Representatives."     The  British  en- 


144  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

voy  speaks  with  an  occasional  hesitation,  which, 
to-day  at  any  rate,  seemed  only  to  enhance  the 
impression  of  sincerity  produced  by  his  utter- 
ance. ^'I  have  been  for  forty-three  years  in 
the  sendee  of  a  free  assembly  like  your 
own.  These  two  are  the  greatest  and  old- 
est of  the  assemblies  now  governing  the  demo- 
cratic nations  of  the  world.  The  full  rights  of 
the  British  assembly  have  been  won  only  after 
long  political  struggle.  Your  lot  was  happier. 
You  came  into  being  full  and  perfected  in  your 
powers  under  the  constitution.  Each  of  the 
two  represents  the  great  democratic  principle 
which  is  the  bulwark  of  the  world's  security. 
This  is  one  of  the  great  moments  in  the  history 
of  the  w^orld.  It  means  the  drawing  together 
of  free  peoples  for  mutual  protection  against 
military  despotism.  All  free  assemblies  have 
made  mistakes ;  they  have  sometimes  committed 
crimes ;  but  only  the  German  nation  has  shown 
itself  capable,  over  a  long  period  of  years,  of 
pursuing,  steadily  and  remorselessly,  a  policy 
whose  object  is  the  moral  and  material  subju- 
gation of  the  world.'* 

As  I  finished  writing  this  in  the  press  gallery 
quarters,  two  men  opposite  me  were  engaged 
looking  up  the  Congressional  Record  to  see  a 
citation  made  in  the  censorship  debate  by  a 
congressman  from  Milton's  "Areopagitica," 
which  the  pressman  declared  the  speaker  had 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  145 

characterised  as  *'the  greatest  plea  for  a  free 
press  to  be  found  in  American  literature.''  His 
companion  then  reminded  him  of  a  declaration, 
alleged  to  have  been  once  made  by  Joseph  Can- 
non that  ^'he  had  always  thought  the  Faerie 
Queene  the  greatest  thing  ever  written  by  Her- 
bert Spencer.''  It  is  more  than  probable  that 
both  incidents  are  imaginary. 


XXIII 

AMERICA  RALLYING  IN  A  FERMENT  OF  ACTIVITY 

Washington,  D.  C,  May  9th. 

MY  stay  in  Washington  draws  necessarily  to 
its  close,  but  I  find  it  hard  to  tear  myself 
away  from  this  centre  where  the  surprising  war 
activities  of  a  mighty  nation  are  converging 
without  sign  of  respite. 

This  morning  as  I  emerged  from  the  Press 
Club,  I  was  lucky  enough  to  overtake  *' Uncle 
Joe'^  Cannon.  ^'I  was  struck  while  Mr.  Bal- 
four was  addressing  the  house  yesterday,  by 
the  fact  that  his  parliamentary  career  just 
about  tallies  with  yours,  Mr.  Cannon, — forty- 
three  years,''  I  volunteered.  *'But  he  is  not 
nearly  as  old  a  man  as  you.''  ^'I  think  they  go 
into  public  life  earlier  in  England  than  they  do 
here.  I  was  about  thirty-six  when  I  started." 
*'You  must  have  taken  very  good  care  of  your- 
self, to  be  hale  and  hearty  at  eighty-one?"  *^No, 
I  never  took  any  care  of  myself.  I've  always 
noticed  that  the  men  who  are  always  taking  care 
of  their  health,  are  likely  to  die  young. ' '  Going 
on  he  said :  * '  They  talk  about  hard  work  killing 
people.    It's  all  poppy-cock.     Gluttony  kills  a 

146 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  147 

great  many,  worry  kills  some,  but  the  man 
that 's  killed  by  work  is  hard  to  find. ' ' 

The  war  dominates  everything  here  now. 
Table-talk,  slang,  advertisements — ever^^thing 
is  informed  by  the  consciousness  of  the  strug- 
gle. *^Sit  down,  but  don't  intern''  was  the 
smart  legend  I  saw  yesterday  on  a  card  over  a 
businessman's  desk.  ^'They  have  750  Commis- 
sions in  the  state  of  Wisconsin,"  said  one  of 
a  group  of  newspaper  men  in  the  House  press 
gallery  yesterday.  ^^I  wish  to  Heaven  they'd 
go  on  now  and  appoint  one  to  inquire  into  the 
sanity  of  ^Bob'  LaFollette,"  interjected  an- 
other. **LaFollette  was  a  national  figure  once," 
said  a  man  to  me  in  the  hotel  rotunda  last  night. 
*^  Everybody  w^as  partially  insane  about  him. 
The  point  is,  though,  that  they  have  all  come 
back  to  their  senses — except  himself." 

Canadians  have  been  perfectly  right  in  feel- 
ing an  enormous  re-inforcement  of  confidence 
through  the  advent  of  the  United  States  in  the 
war.  I  feel  as  nearly  as  possible  perfectly  con- 
fident that  whoever  or  whatever  may  fall  away 
from  the  side  of  Great  Britain,  the  accession  of 
the  United  States  means  that  Britain's  side  will 
win.  There  is  an  unbelievable  ferment  of  ac- 
tivity here.  Last  night  it  was  somewhat  au- 
thoritatively announced  by  the  Naval  Board 
that  no  fewer  than  500  devices  or  plans  for  the 


148  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

suppression  of  the  submarine  had  already  been 
submitted  since  the  declaration  of  war. 

One  of  the  most  hopeful  signs  on  tlie  horizon 
is  what  I  have,  perhaps,  already  called  ^Hhe 
bone''  or  *^the  iron''  in  American  policy  to-day. 
Witness  the  absolute  and  calm  ignoring  of  pos- 
sibly anti-national  forces  within  the  nation  by 
the  adoption,  you  may  say,  within  thirty  days  of 
the  declaration  of  war,  of  scientific  and  iron- 
bound  conscription.  W^itness,  as  an  integral 
part  of  that  scheme,  a  copper-riveted,  unflinch- 
ing, obligatory  registration  of  men  within  the 
prescribed  ages.  The  plans  are  so  minute  and 
the  organisation  so  complete  that  it  is  consid- 
ered possible  that  this  enrollment  of  say  7,- 
000,000  males,  may  be  an  accomplished  fact 
within  fifteen  days  of  the  President's  procla- 
mation. Unless  all  signs  fail,  Germany  caught 
a  Tartar  when  she  drove  America  into  the  war. 

One  of  the  solid  reasons  why  Canadians  may 
count  with  confidence  on  the  effectiveness  of  a 
rallied  America,  is  the  superb  facilities  this 
country  possesses  for  the  mobilisation  of  opin- 
ion and  the  organisation  of  resources.  Ex- 
amples: Yesterday  presidents  and  representa- 
tives of  180  universities  were  in  consultation 
here  in  Washington  with  the  Secretary  for  War. 
This  morning  Secretary  of  Labor  Wilson  an- 
nounces, with  the  collaboration  of  Secretary  of 
the  Interior  Lane,  a  plan  for  the  enrolment  of 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  149 

5,000,000  boys  below  the  draft  age,  imder  the 
auspices  of  the  United  States  Boys'  Reserve  for 
auxiliary  war  work.  To-morrow  night  begins 
here  a  Conference  under  the  direction  of  the 
Federal  Council  of  Churches  of  Christ  in  Amer- 
ica with  respect  to  the  war.  This  body  repre- 
sents 18,000,000  people.  Among  the  speakers 
are  to  be  Jowett  of  New  York,  John  R.  Mott, 
Robert  E.  Speer,  and  Raymond  Robins,  who 
recently  visited  "Winnipeg.  I  have  already  re- 
ferred to  the  unreserved  war  manifesto  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  archbishops.  Two  members  of 
the  British  Mission,  by  the  way,  lunched  yes- 
terday at  Baltimore  with  Cardinal  Gibbons. 

As  my  Washington  sojourn  approaches  its 
end,  I  am  permitting  myself  to  take  a  look  at 
the  past  of  the  capital,  which  so  far,  I  had  had 
to  ignore.  Saturday  afternoon  I  turned  my 
steps  toward  the  old  Ford  theatre  and  the 
house  across  the  way  where  Lincoln  died.  By 
coincidence  it  was  a  coloured  man  who  desig- 
nated the  house  for  me.  '^This  is  the  house,'' 
he  said.  A  reference  to  this  memorable  spot  is 
germane  to  the  caption  *^The  United  States  at 
War,"  because  America  enters  this  struggle 
with  two  supreme  memories — the  memories  of 
Washington  and  of  Lincoln.  As  I  came  away 
from  that  humble  lodging  house,  I  found  myself 
fully  under  the  spell  of  that  homely,  simple 
man  who  lifts,  by  some  strange  alchemy,  every- 


150  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

body  who  comes  in  contact  with  his  personality, 
to  tho  highest  level  of  his  faculty  of  goodness. 

This  afternoon  I  met  on  the  street  Frank  L. 
McVey,  President  of  the  University  of  North 
Dakota,  who  was  just  leaving  for  New  York 
after  attending  the  war  conference  of  the  uni- 
versities. I  asked  him  if  the  universities  would 
be  able  to  render  practical  assistance.  He  said, 
^^Undoubtedly.''  ^'Are  they  placing  their  lab- 
oratories and  so  on  at  the  disposal  of  the  gov- 
ernment T'  *^ That's  already  done."  The  only 
divergent  strain  that  developed  at  the  confer- 
ence was  the  suggestion  of  a  minority  that  the 
conference  should  make  a  pronouncement  in 
favor  of  three  new  executive  departments  or 
ministries :  Food,  munitions  and  shipping.  The 
weight  of  opinion  was  in  favour  of  leaving  the 
government  schemes  time  to  develop. 

After  leaving  President  McVey,  I  treated  my- 
self to  a  'bus  trip  through  the  city  to  get  the 
ensemble  view  that  my  work  had  not  permitted 
me  to  get  earlier.  The  guide's  jokes  were  very 
good — at  any  rate  when  falling  on  virgin 
soil.  I  have  no  doubt  they  are  strictly  stand- 
ardised, but  those  of  my  readers  who  have 
heard  them  will  forgive  me,  if  I  retail  a  few 
of  them,  for  people  as  ingenuous  as  I  am  my- 
self. Passing  two  stores,  one  devoted  to  boots 
and  shoes  (Kann's)  and  one  to  clothing  (Saks), 
he  said,  ^'Men  are  frequently  seen  here  coming 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  151 

out  of  sacks  and  going  into  cans/'  A  certain 
building  he  pointed  out  as  the  scene  of  the  only 
political  speech  delivered  by  Bryan  in  Washing- 
ton. *^He  lost  his  overcoat  and  hat  that  day. 
Some  people  think  it's  a  pity  he  didn't  lose  his 
voice  too."  Turning  into  a  rough  stretch  of 
street,  he  said,  ^*  Sometimes  called  Roosevelt 
street — it's  such  a  rough  rider."    As  we  went 

past  the  residence  of  of  New 

York,  he  volunteered  this  explanation  of  its 
three  stories  below  the  street  level:  ^'It's  said 
in  Washington  that  he  is  trying  to  meet  his 
father  halfway."  The  vicinity  of  Dupont  Cir- 
cle is  occupied  by  the  homes  of  the  very  rich. 
He  declared  that  here  ^Hhe  people  scrub  their 
floors  with  gold  dust,  their  motors  have  dia- 
mond tires,  the  horses  wear  checks  on  their 
heads,  the  birds  carry  bills,  and  the  grass  has 
green  backs."  Circling  the  Natural  History  Mu- 
seum he  said:  ^'This  building  contains  every- 
thing except  the  South  Pole — even  including  the 
Roosevelt  River  of  Doubt,  which  flows  up  hill 
for  forty  miles."  Passing  the  residence  occu- 
pied by  Cannon  when  Speaker  of  the  House, 
the  guide  gave  us  the  benefit  of  this  jingle, 
*  ^  Cannons  may  come,  and  Cannons  may  go,  but 
there'll  never  be  another  like  *01d  Uncle 
Joe.'  " 


XXIV 


Maryland's  capital  in  war-time 


Baltimorey  Mart/land,  May  9th. 
/^F  the  fifty  minutes  that  it  took  us  this  mom- 
^^  ing  to  run  from  Washington  to  Baltimore, 
I  spent  twenty  at  breakfast  and  thirty  in  con- 
versation with  Wharton  Monney,  a  New  Or- 
leans business  man.  He  is  of  French  extrac- 
tion on  both  sides.  His  mother,  who,  with  her 
mother  again,  was  bom  in  New  Orleans,  speaks 
French  only.  She  understands  English,  but  an- 
swers in  French.  My  interlocutor  this  morning 
had  met  Victor  Bouche,  of  Winnipeg,  in  Cali- 
fornia. He  said :  **Two  years  ago  the  man  who 
w^ould  have  mentioned  conscription  for  this 
country,  I  would  have  thought  insane.  But  it's 
the  only  thing.  I'm  a  convert  now.  When  the 
war  began,  and  for  two  years  after,  I  thought 
only  of  France.  I  didn't  see  England.  Not 
that  I  disliked  her,  but  I  thought  France.  Now, 
I  see  that  we  should  have  been  more  closely  in 
touch  with  England  all  the  time.  England  is 
splendidly  democratic  to-day." 
My  last  meal  in  Washington  I  had  with  two 
152 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  153 

congressmen,  Dill,  of  Spokane,  Washington, 
and  Nicholls,  of  Detroit.  They  differed  about 
the  proposed  war  tax  of  5  per  cent,  on  the  gross 
receipts,  for  example,  of  automobile  factories. 
The  Detroit  man  said:  ^' There  are  400  auto- 
mobile manufacturers  in  the  United  States. 
Eighty  per  cent,  of  the  business  is  done  by  12 
of  these.  This  5  per  cent,  tax  will  put  a  lot  of 
the  small  men  out  of  commission.''  Dill  said: 
*^Let  business  pay.  I  have  no  sympathy  with 
^business  as  usual.'  If  the  plain  people  send 
their  sons  in,  the  business  men  will  have  to  send 
their  money."  Of  course  there  is  no  finality 
about  the  war  revenue  bill  as  it  is  now  drawn. 

After  Nicholls  left  I  had  a  very  interesting 
disclosure  from  Mr.  Dill.  I  am  going  to  give 
the  gist  of  what  he  said,  prefacing  it  by  the  re- 
mark, which  may  be  relied  upon  to  the  letter, 
that  his  contribution  respecting  the  war  is, 
with  the  exception  of  the  views  of  the  German 
I  met  at  Pittsburgh,  the  solitary  expression 
on  that  side  of  the  issue  that  I  have  heard 
since  I  entered  the  United  States  four  weeks 
ago  to-morrow.  Dill  is  only  32,  and  is  sitting 
his  second  term  in  Congress.  He  is  a  handsome, 
and  very  *  taking"  fellow.  ^^I've  had  rather 
an  odd  career.  As  a  matter  of  fact  I'm  in  a 
peculiar  position  right  now.  My  state  ir  Re- 
publican. Democrats  hadn't  a  look  in.  The 
Republican-Progressive     split    gave    us     our 


154  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

chance,  and  I  won  tlio  second  last  time  by  12,- 

000  majority.  This  time,  party  lines  having  set- 
tled down,  I  didn't  think  I  had  a  ghost  of  a 
show,  but  I  won  by  5,000.  What  did  I  win  on  ? 
On  pledges,  given  to  the  hilt,  that  we  must  keep 
America  out  of  the  war.  I  had  talked  with 
Wilson.  He  said  to  me  that  the  worst  we  should 
come  to,  wo«uld  be  armed  neutrality.  Banking 
on  that  I  went  the  limit  on  every  platform,  ad- 
vocating keeping  America  at  peace.  Now,  what 
am  I  confronted  by,  w^hen  I  come  to  Washing- 
ton? War  and  conscription.  I  was  one  of  the 
fifty  or  so  in  the  house  to  vote  against  the  Dec- 
laration of  a  state  of  war.  What  else  could  I 
do?    I  had  given  specific  pledges.    How  could 

1  have  looked  people  in  the  face  if  I  hadn't 
done  as  I  said  I  would  do?  My  father's  prin- 
ciple was,  your  word  as  good  as  your  note.  I 
have  little  doubt  that  I  have  committed  political 
hari-kiri,  but  I'm  not  worrying  much  about 
that."  ^*How  is  the  war  feeling  developing 
among  your  people  [state  of  Washington]?" 
*^Not  much.  Most  of  my  people  have  a  notion 
that  it  is  a  Wall  Street  war.  The  newspapers 
have  turned  the  trick."  ** Aside  from  your  dif- 
ficult political  position,  what  is  your  own  psy- 
chology now?  What  do  you  think  about  the 
war?"  *^Well,  we're  in;  w^e'll  have  to  make 
the  best  of  it.  We  simply  have  to  win.  That's 
all  there's  to  it.    I  think  some  of  taking  train- 


AMERICAATWAR  155 

ing  as  an  oflScer.  I  have  always  liked  that  sort 
of  thing.'' 

I  hope  my  readers  will  remember  two  things 
at  this  point.  I  repeat,  this  is,  with  the  excep- 
tion indicated,  the  one  declaration  of  this  sort 
I  have  heard,  and  I  have  now  talked  with  a 
very  large  number  of  people  in  a  very  free  way. 
In  the  second  place.  Dill's  position  is  perfectly 
self-respecting.  He  was  elected  on  a  platform  of 
continued  peace.  We  find  fault  fundamentally 
with  that  position,  but  I  have  no  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  this  particular  congressman  did  not 
subscribe  to  it  honestly.  Confronted  by  the 
point-blank  opposite  of  his  pledges,  he  adhered 
to  them.  Now  that  the  country  is  at  war  he  is 
prepared  cheerfully  not  to  return  to  Congress. 

* '  There  is  no  doubt, ' '  he  said,  * '  that  the  Presi- 
dent has  the  country  in  general  overwhelmingly 
with  him."  In  the  meantime  he  is  contemplat- 
ing joining  the  armed  forces.  He  is  not  with- 
out anticipation  that  there  may  be  some  trouble 
in  western,  for  example,  in  mining  states,  when 
the  draft  comes  to  be  applied.  '*The  plan  is 
to  have  the  local  drafting  supervised  by  the 
county  sheriff,  doctor  and  one  other  official 
[whose  designation  I  have  forgotten].  If  these 
fellows  show  any  favouritism,  men  in  my  state 
— ^miners  for  instance — won't  waste  much  time 
with  them.  They'll  simply  ignore  the  small 
politicians,  make  their  own  Board,  and  see  that 


156  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

the  thing  is  done  on  tlie  square.''  With  all  of 
which  there  is  no  fault  to  he  found.  I  asked 
him  if  the  draft  would  he  applied  unflinchingly 
in  foreign-American  areas,  or  whether  a  cer- 
tain discretion  would  he  practised  in  this  re- 
gard. He  said  he  helieved  it  would  be  applied 
entirely  uniformly.  **Are  the  foreigners  likely 
to  resist  drafting!''  *^No,  I  don't  think  there 
is  any  likelihood  of  that."  And  it  will  be  noted 
that  the  trouble  he  would  not  be  surprised  to 
find  in  mining  and  labour  communities,  will  oc- 
cur only,  according  to  his  mind,  in  the  event  of 
favouritism.  I  think  it  my  duty  to  give  the 
point  of  view  of  this  attractive  politician  who 
opposed  the  w^ar. 

The  initial  view  of  Baltimore  makes  one  think 
of  St.  Paul — ^narrow  streets,  for  one  thing.  The 
buildings  are  beflagged,  though  not  so  copiously 
as  those  of  the  capital.  I  noticed  that  from  the 
balcony  over  the  Charles  Street  entrance  to  the 
residence  of  Cardinal  Gibbons,  Baltimore's 
most  eminent  citizen,  the  Stars  and  Stripes 
float.  The  Cardinal's  palace  is  immediately  at 
the  rear  of  the  cathedral.  Within  the  cathedral 
at  each  side  of  the  main  entrance  is  a  large 
painting  given  by  Louis  XVIII.  of  France  to 
the  arch-diocese  of  Baltimore.  One  is  a  picture 
of  Saint  Louis  burying  plague-stricken  crusad- 
ers at  Tunis,  by  an  artist  whose  name  the  dim 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  157 

light  kept  me  from  deciphering.     The  other  is 
a  Descent  from  the  Cross,  by  Guerin. 

Through  the  hotel  window  as  I  write  I  see  a 
sqnad  of  marine  recruits  forming  up.  The 
street  cars  bear  placards  with  the  legend :  **  Un- 
cle Sam  "Wants  You.  Step  out  and  enlist  now. 
Be  a  man.  Have  the  sand.  Bear  a  hand. ' '  I  was 
reminded  sharply  of  Germany's  cleverness  when 
my  attention  was  directed  across  the  harbour  to 
the  spot  where  theDeutscJiland  docked.  The  Bal- 
timore Sun  this  morning  has  a  front  page  full 
column  on  Canada's  effort  to  increase  produc- 
tion. It  ends:  ^^Wliat  will  Marylanders  do  to 
swell  production!"  The  two  chief  editorials  to- 
day in  the  Baltimore  American^  Hearst's  paper, 
are  entitled:  *^The  Kaiser's  Buncombe"  and 
^'The  Lusitania  Cycle."  The  former  ends: 
^^Out  of  France  with  the  outlaws,  is  in  effect  the 
slogan  that  is  being  sounded  by  the  French  and 
British  guns  as  they  beat  back  the  Kaiser's  in- 
vincibles,  and  leave  the  Hindenburg  army's  myr- 
iad dead  upon  the  field."  The  last  paragraph  of 
^^The  Lusitania  Cycle"  reads:  *^The  harvest  of 
the  wrath  of  God  is  ripening  and  the  harvest 
will  be  reaped  as  surely  as  law  follows  license, 
as  surely  as  the  judgments  of  the  Almighty 
stand  fast.  The  issue  the  United  States  has 
joined  with  Germany  will  witness  the  triumph 
of  American  arms,  American  honour,  and 
American  succour  for  civilisation." 


XXV 


Philadelphia,  May  10th. 
rri  HE  gladdest  of  May  weather  welcomed  the 
-■'  French  envoys  in  Philadelphia  on  their 
way  to  New  York.  *^Buy  the  allied  flags''  was 
the  cry  that  greeted  me  as  I  emerged  this  morn- 
ing from  the  Hotel  Walton.  The  city  streets 
are  aflame  with  colour.  In  the  early  part  of  the 
day  a  brisk  breeze  made  the  flags  dance  and 
gave  the  streets  an  air  of  vivacity  that  affected 
one  strangely  in  this  Quaker  city.  Later  the 
breeze  died  away,  and  lazily  drooping  flags 
made  solidity  take  the  place  of  the  earlier  mo- 
bility. Many  of  the  multitudes  that  thronged 
the  streets  and  the  cars  carried  flags,  the  tri- 
colour holding  its  own  bravely  with  the  native 
Stars  and  Stripes. 

I  reached  the  Girls'  High  School  opposite  the 
United  States  Mint  just  about  five  minutes 
before  the  arrival  of  the  French  party.  Here 
about  1,500  girls  were  massed  in  front  of  the 
school.  The  school-front  was  just  a  bank  of 
colour.  A  pause  ensued.  Suddenly  a  move- 
ment ran  through  the  crowd,  a  squad  of  motor- 

158 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  159 

cycle  policemen  dashed  up,  and  before  we 
knew  it,  almost,  the  familiar  figures  of  Joffre 
and  Viviani  were  before  us.  Viviani  and  Joif re 
were  in  the  first  motor,  Jusserand  in  the  sec- 
ond, Chocheprat,  the  French  admiral,  in  the 
third.  The  girls  sang  ^'The  Marseillaise''  and 
''The  Star  Spangled  Banner"  splendidly,  wav- 
ing their  flags  between  the  stanzas.  When 
''Vive  la  France"  was  shouted,  Joffre  saluted. 
Otherwise  he  stood  motionless.  As  the  last 
cry  died  away,  the  carriages  dashed  off. 

Their  next  stop  was  at  the  sturdy,  resolute 
statue  of  Joan  of  Arc,  near  the  entrance  to 
Fairmount  Park.  Here  Joffre  deposited  a 
wreath,  bound  with  intertwined  French  and 
American  colours.  After  a  ceremony  at  Penn's 
house  in  the  park  itself,  the  party  proceeded  to 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  where  honour- 
ary  degrees  were  conferred  on  the  Frenchmen 
by  the  Provost  of  the  university.  The  degrees 
were  conferred  at  the  base  of  the  statue  of 
Franklin,  the  founder  of  the  university.  The 
statue  represents  Franklin  as  a  youth  starting 
out  to  find  his  fortune — in  right  hand  a  bundle, 
in  left  hand  a  rustic  stick.  The  face  wears  a 
cheery,  forward-looking  expression,  making  one 
think  of  Dick  Whittington.  His  feet  are  strik- 
ing a  stride  that  reminded  me  of  the  statue  of 
Wilhelm  Tell  in  Altdorf,  Switzerland. 

I  pause  to  remark  that  the  foundations  of 


160  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

American  education  were  laid  by  men  blessed 
with  ideality  and  vision.  So  it  was  with  John 
Harvard;  so  with  Thomas  Jefferson,  the 
founder  of  the  University  of  Virginia;  and  so, 
here  again,  with  Franklin,  the  founder  of  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania. 

From  the  Franklin  statue  the  party  pro- 
ceeded to  the  closely  adjoining  Franklin  Field, 
where  twenty-four  thousand  people  were  seated 
in  the  stadium.  The  motors  of  the  party  made 
the  circle  of  the  field,  and  then  one  thousand 
recruits  of  the  university,  some  in  uniform  and 
some  not,  paraded.  I  got  back  to  my  hotel  just 
as  the  party  was  entering  the  Bellevue-Strat- 
ford  Hotel,  nearly  opposite  us,  for  the  luncheon 
tendered  by  the  municipality. 

The  chief  memories  that  dominate  Philadel- 
phia are  those  of  Franklin,  Penn  and  Washing- 
ton. Witnessing  the  homage  offered  to-day  by 
the  Frenchmen  to  the  memory  of  Franklin  I 
have  not  been  able  to  dismiss  from  my  mind  that 
notable  scene,  enacted  during  the  apotheosis 
of  Voltaire  in  Paris  in  1778,  when  the  great 
Deist,  meeting  Franklin  and  his  son  or  grand- 
son, I  forget  which,  resting  his  hand  on  the 
young  boy's  shoulder,  pronounced  the  talis- 
manic  words,  "Dieu  et  Liberte.''  Some  such 
thought  doubtless  was  running  through  Vol- 
taire's mind  on  that  occasion  in  the  presence 
of  young  America  as  was  in  Viviani's  to-day 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  161 

when  he  said,  *^ America  is  posterity."  As  I 
stood  this  afternoon  before  the  little  brick 
house  of  Penn  overlooking  the  Schuylkill  River 
in  Fairmount  Park,  my  mind  reverted  in  1898, 
when,  from  the  churchyard  of  Stoke-Poges,  im- 
mortalised by  Thomas  Gray,  I  saw  rising  across 
the  Buckinghamshire  fields  the  stately  manor 
house  of  the  Penns.  Putting  the  two  buildings 
side  by  side  mentally,  it  is  as  if  the  son  of  an 
Ontario  farmer,  accustomed  to  living  in  an  old 
stone  farm-house  surrounded  by  orchards  and 
comfort,  had  gone  out  to  Saskatchewan  or  Al- 
berta and  there  built  his  homesteader's  shack. 

The  Mayor  of  Philadelphia,  speaking  to-day 
in  the  room  where  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence was  signed,  is  reported  as  saying  in  part  in 
the  presence  of  the  French  envoys:  *^Here,  in 
this  little  room,  the  Fathers  in  1776  proclaimed 
liberty  under  law.  On  this  altar  the  flame  of 
liberty  was  lighted.  And  so  to  testify  the  depth 
and  sincerity  of  our  love  for  France,  we  have 
brought  you  to  the  most  sacred  spot  in  Amer- 
ica, that,  humbly  bowing  in  supplication  be- 
fore Him  Who  holds  in  the  hollow  of  His  hand 
the  issues  of  life  and  death,  of  victory  and  de- 
feat, we  may  ask  comfort  for  those  who  suffer 
and  new  strength  for  those  who  battle  for  the 
right." 

The  Philadelphia  Evening  Telegraph  says  to- 
night; ^^  To-day  the  hearts  of  our  people  are 


162  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

warm  with  pride  because  America  has  pledged 
her  blood  and  treasure  to  help  complete  the 
triumph  of  France,  the  final  extermination  of 
autocracy  from  Europe.  In  their  hour  of  in- 
fant peril,  France  went  to  the  rescue  of  the 
thirteen  American  colonies ;  in  their  hour  of  in- 
vincible might,  the  states  which  have  grown  out 
of  those  colonies  strike  hands  with  France  in 
defence  of  freedom,  and  to  bring  a  lasting  peace 
to  all  mankind." 

The  Ledger  says:  ** To-day  it  is  the  promise. 
To-morrow  it  will  be  the  fulfilment.  All  of  our 
energy,  all  of  our  wealth,  all  of  our  hope  and 
blood  we  offer  in  defence  of  the  altars  which 
have  been  defiled.  We  cheer,  but  our  hearts  are 
set  to  the  grim  duty  ahead.  We  shall  not  fail 
our  friends." 

Every  one  who  sees  Viviani  is  struck  Avith  the 
sadness  of  his  face.  Amid  the  loudest  acclama- 
tions it  is  only  a  sort  of  haunted  smile  that 
lights  up  his  sensitive  features.  It  is  as  if,  in 
the  midst  of  this  splendid  material  civilisation, 
in  the  midst  of  these  endless  multitudes,  he 
cannot  shut  out  the  thought  of  France  bleeding 
at  every  vein.  Only  now  and  then,  when  the 
thought  of  what  all  this  teeming  man-power  and 
wealth  can  do,  if  only  it  can  be  brought  to  bear 
in  time,  breaks  upon  him,  as  it  were  in  a  wild 
spasm  of  hope  and  scarcely  entertained  joy,  he 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  16S 

flings  his  arms  about  one  or  other  of  his  com- 
rades. 

Viviani  and  Balfour  have  proven  admirable 
representatives  of  their  respective  races  here. 
Joffre,  of  course,  stands  by  himself,  and  I  am 
not  speaking  of  him  at  this  moment.  Balfour's 
oratory,  slightly  hesitant  in  delivery  but  moving 
with  ordered  strength  in  print,  is  completely 
British,  as  indeed  are  his  whole  conduct  and  de- 
portment. Viviani  is  Latin  to  the  core.  His 
quick,  darting  emotionalism,  his  rapid  improv- 
isation, enforced  by  febrile  gesture,  are  sting- 
ing America  into  a  realisation  of  the  facts.  The 
appeal  of  the  French  Commission  has  been  suc- 
cessfully made  to  the  heart  and  the  imagina- 
tion of  America.  The  British  Commission  has 
appealed  with  equal  success  to  its  judgment. 
The  union  of  the  two  makes  a  strategic  com- 
bination of  the  first  consequence. 


XXVI 


WZLSON  AND  ROOSEVELT 


New  York,  May  11th. 
XJEW  YOEK  is  a  world  phenomenon.  Like 
-^^  London,  it  is  too  big  to  speak  about  en 
masse,  A  myriad,  ant-like  population,  moving 
about  with  dashing  swiftness  amid  cyclopean 
structures  and  through  great  gorge-like  streets 
ablaze  with  allied  colours — this  would  be  a 
thrust  at  a  definition  of  the  American  metropo- 
lis as  it  looks  to-day. 

Joffre  and  Viviani  have  been  here  two  days. 
Balfour  comes  to-day.  The  reception  of  the 
Frenchmen,  lifted  to  a  giant  crescendo,  staggers 
description.  Perhaps  I  have  talked  enough 
even  about  them.  No  doubt  the  wired  des- 
patches, giving  the  colour  of  this  mammoth 
event,  are  very  full,  so  I  forbear  further  com- 
ment. 

While  waiting  for  New  York  material  to 
straighten  out  in  my  mind  there  are  some  other 
matters  I  wish  to  speak  of.  I  did  not  come 
down  here  to  exploit  any  thesis,  formed  in  ad- 
vance, but  as  faithfully  as  might  be  to  reflect 
the  facts  and  submit  them  to  my  readers  in 

164 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  165 

order  to  supplement  their  usual  sources  of  in- 
formation. 

In  the  first  place,  Roosevelt  is  the  big  indig- 
enous figure  before  the  American  imagination 
to-day.  He  embodies  America,  lusty,  laughing, 
action-loving  America,  as  no  one  else  does.  He 
is  at  the  back  of  every  conversation,  with  high 
and  low,  literate  and  illiterate,  rich  and  poor, 
drunk  and  sober.  I  could  not  help  thinking  of 
him  to-day  at  Columbia  while  the  degrees  were 
being  given  Viviani  and  Joffre,  Mitchel,  the 
Mayor,  was  there,  but  there  were  few  eyes  for 
him.  Hughes  was  there,  but  he  got  no  atten- 
tion. If  Teddy  had  unexpectedly  rolled  up  in 
his  motor,  the  whole  *^ works"  would  have 
stopped  and  the  concourse  would  have  given 
him  an  ovation  that  would  have  vied  with  that 
to  Joffre. 

Teddy  is  a  problem  to-day  for  President  Wil- 
son. I  am  going  to  speak  frankly  in  this  letter 
about  Wilson,  for  whom  I  have  great  respect. 
He  is  a  man  of  the  first  ability.  His  capacity 
is  of  the  highly  intellectual,  rationalised,  and,  in 
that  sense,  scientific  order.  He  is  master  of  his 
administration.  His  Cabinet  contains  no  na- 
tional figures — McAdoo  and  Lane  measurably 
excepted.  Even  these  two  have  no  large  na- 
tional reputations,  that  is,  if  you  fix  your  scale 
by  Roosevelt  or  by  Wilson.  I  can  imagine  some 
one's  being  made  impatient  by  this  denial  of 


166  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

** national  reputations'*  to  the  heads  of  the  re- 
spective Executive  Departments,  so  I  pause  to 
say  in  a  word  what  I  mean.  When  some  one 
says,  ^'Secretary  of  War  Baker,'*  you  think 
of  the  Secretary  of  War,  not  of  Baker.  When 
some  one  says,  ''Secretary  of  the  Navy  Dan- 
iels,'* you  think  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 
not  of  Daniels.  That  puts  in  a  nutshell  what 
I  mean,  and,  incidentally,  shows  that  I  do  not 
mean  anything  very  bad.  Of  the  executive  end 
of  the  United  States  government,  then,  Wilson 
is  undisputed  master.  His  supremacy  over  the 
present  Congress  is  more  questionable.  If  it 
were  not  for  the  war  he  might,  conceivably,  be 
having  a  hard  time.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to 
add  that,  of  the  Democratic  party,  Wilson  is  the 
dominating  fi.gure.  He  is  first,  and  there  is,  as 
yet,  no  second. 

The  scientific  character  of  Wilson's  states- 
manship is  reflected  in  his  Army  Bill.  So  far 
as  a  big  and  ultimately  efiScient  army  of  the  kind 
that  will  be  required  for  a  long  war,  is  concern- 
ed, Wilson  is  beyond  question  absolutely  right. 
In  this  respect  it  is  nothing  short  of  a  godsend 
that  at  this  juncture,  the  country  is  in  the  charge 
of  a  man  like  him.  But  now  comes  in  the  cry 
of  France  for  instant  help.  Because,  make  no 
mistake  about  it,  the  appeal  of  France  is  to-day 
a  *'cry" — a  cry  warranted  and  self-respecting, 
but  undisguisedly  poignant.     The  man  or  the 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  167 

people  that  does  not  help  France  to-day  de- 
serves the  cold  shoulder  from  the  total  French 
race  of  the  future.  In  this  situation  the  French 
envoys  have  been  insistent,  in  the  good  sense 
of  the  word.  I  should  not  be  sui^rised  to  know 
that  they  have  even  embarrassed  Wilson  a  lit- 
tle, in  this  particular.  I  say  this,  without  im- 
plying for  an  instant  that  his  ultimate  inten- 
tions with  respect  to  France  are  not  of  the 
noblest.  But  he  has  been  planning  for  an  ade- 
quate and  long  sustained  effort.  The  French 
Commissioners  want  this,  but  in  addition  they 
want  a  measure  of  immediate  help,  and  they 
want  the  moral  advantage  of  the  Stars  and 
Stripes.  Roosevelt  wants  to  go.  He  wanted  to 
go,  before  Joffre  came.  .  Now  comes  Joffre — 
and  the  two  national  idols  see  absolutely  eye  to 
eye.  Wilson  has  the  air  of  sticking  and  hang- 
ing about  this  Roosevelt  business.  The  official 
explanation  implied  is:  Could  such  a  force 
as  Roosevelt  contemplates,  be  equipped  and 
trained  in  a  hurry,  as  it  must  be,  for  a  war  of 
the  character  of  the  present  1  But  back  against 
this  comes  the  message  of  the  French  Mission 
touching  the  Russian  contingent  on  French  soil. 
50,000  Russian  conscripts  appear  in  France. 
They  have  only  the  most  elementary  training. 
They  are  slow  peasants.  After  five  weeks' 
training  back  of  the  lines  they  go  into  action, 
and  not  only  inspirit  France  and  dampen  Ger- 


168  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

many,  but  actually  win  their  first  engagments. 

Incidentally,  it  grows  painfully  clear  to  me 
that  we  in  Canada  have  blundered  in  keeping 
our  troops  in  training  for  such  inordinate  pe- 
riods on  Canadian  soil.  I  do  not  wonder  that 
there  have  been  blunders;  and  it  is  easy  to  be 
wise  after  the  event.  But  the  evidence  of  the 
French  Mission  convinces  me  that  the  only  ef- 
fective place  to  train  troops  for  this  war,  is  as 
near  as  possible  to  the  sound  of  the  guns. 

To  resume  reference  to  the  Wilson-Roosevelt 
tussle.  Because,  make  no  mistake  about  it,  a 
keen  ^^ tussle"  is  going  forward  between  the  ex- 
tremely able  man  in  the  White  House,  and  the 
bouncing  America-embod>dng  man  outside  the 
White  House.  He  would  be  a  daring  individual 
who  would  dogmatise  just  now,  as  to  which  will 
win.  Note,  here,  that  the  one  that  wins  for  the 
moment  may  not  win  in  the  long  run.  But  fur- 
ther, from  Wilson's  side  in  this  argument:  will 
it  blur  the  popular  mind  as  to  the  propriety  of 
the  Draft,  to  authorise  this  voluntary,  one  might 
almost  say,  guerilla  force  f  But  back  pitilessly 
comes  the  answer :  the  men  of  this  force  would 
be  above  the  conscript  ages,  and  would  repre- 
sent a  totally  additional  resource.  A  reason 
advanced  privately  on  Wilson's  side,  and  a  rea- 
son that  has  something  in  it,  is  that  this  ex- 
peditionary force,  thus  spectacularly  gathered, 
would  be   in  the  limelight   all  the  time,  and 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  169 

would  get  all  the  credit  as  against  the  more 
drably  organised  body  of  the  army.  This  is  a 
good  point,  but  cannot  be  said  to  be  bulking 
large  in  the  popular  mind. 

One  is  sorry  to  say  it,  but  the  deep  reason 
for  the  reluctance  at  Washington  is  the  political 
situation.  The  enterprise,  carried  through  in 
characteristic  Rooseveltian  fashion,  would  elect 
Teddy  in  1920.  That  is,  of  course,  presuming 
that  he  survived.  Here,  I  must,  without  pro- 
nouncement on  my  part,  bring  in  the  contention 
advanced  by  very  many,  that  Wilson  is  stiffly 
partisan.  No  one  pretends  to  discount  his  abil- 
ity. I  for  my  part  have  no  disposition  to  dis- 
count his  high-mindedness.  But  it  is  as  clear 
as  it  can  reasonably  be,  that  there  is  no  instant 
spontaneity  about  him.  There  is  little  magnet- 
ism. There  is  a  great  brain.  There  is  a  finely 
ordered  intelligence.  There  is  executive  mast- 
ery. There  is  calmness,  poise,  and  a  long  range 
of  prescience  But  amplitude  of  personality, 
warmth  of  feeling,  downright  generosity  of  im- 
pulse seem  rather  lacking. 

In  fact  Wilson  and  impulse  seem  strangers. 
Needless  to  say,  this  temperament  has  certain 
great  advantages.  It  comports  in  some  impor- 
tant respects  with  the  leadership  of  a  great 
state.  But  it  fails,  equally  indubitably,  to  grap- 
ple to  its  side  the  surging  passion  of  the  people, 
which  constitutes  the  psychological  element  in  a 


170  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

national  effort  of  the  first  magnitude.  There  is 
no  warmth  in  popular  or  personal  references  to 
the  President.  His  office  is,  of  course,  so  exalted 
that  he  commands  complete  respect.  No  one 
hints  that  his  talents  are  not  commensurate  with 
his  station.  But,  on  the  whole,  without  driving 
the  words  to  their  limit,  he  does  not  swell  out 
the  office  by  that  large  appeal  either  to  the  af- 
fections or  to  the  imagination,  which  is  essential 
to  the  ideal  leader  in  elemental  times. 

Not  seldom  one  encounters  great  bitterness, 
a  sort  of  unappeasable  grudge,  in  conversations 
about  him  by  men  who  are  yet,  or  at  the  same 
time,  bent  heart  and  soul  on  supporting  him  in 
the  prosecution  of  the  war.  The  last  man  I 
have  in  mind  in  this  connection  is  a  young  en- 
gineer whom  I  chatted  with  on  my  way  from 
Philadelphia  to  New  York.  This  is  the  gist  of 
what  he  said :  The  whole  thing  now  is  a  matter 
of  drab  duty.  Wilson  has  taken  all  the  punch, 
bounce,  and  pride  out  of  the  people  in  the  mat- 
ter of  war.  The  time  to  strike  was  when  Bel- 
gium was  invaded.  That  responsibility  was 
side-stepped.  To  use  my  man's  exact  word, 
'Mucked.'*  A  second  time  came  when  the  Lusi- 
tania  was  sunk.  ''Duck"  again.  Wilson  was 
re-elected  on  the  cry:  "He  kept  us  out  of  the 
war."  He  has  taught  millions  of  my  country- 
men to  think  we  were  justified  in  "skulking." 
This  is  a  sharp  indictment.    It  puts  things  in 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  171 

the  worst  possible  light.  It  is  a  straight  ren- 
dering of  a  certain  resentful  body  of  opinion. 
Here  I  report  it  in  my  role  of  annalist,  and  re- 
fuse to  stand  sponsor  for  it. 

Remember,  this  will  not  affect  the  ultimate 
result.  The  bulk  of  America  wanted  to  go  to 
war  in  the  biggest  way  at  the  right  time.  Many 
simply  say,  it  was  denied  the  chance.  I  prefer 
to  believe  that  Wilson  was  high-minded  in  his 
policy.  But  America  is  now  at  Avar,  and  when 
American  blood  begins  really  to  flow,  the  punch 
and  vigour  that  would  have  marked  idealistic 
America,  engaged  paladin-like  in  a  chivalrous 
war,  will  come.  Because  this  war  will  still  be  a 
war  of  chivalry,  and,  there  is  small  question, 
Wilson  will  handle  it  for  his  part  competently. 

But  if  the  public,  groundedly  or  ungrounded- 
ly,  gets  the  idea  that  Wilson  is  frustrating 
Roosevelt,  the  President  will  not  easily  be  for- 
given. The  broad  public  is  in  a  mood  for  a  gal- 
lant enterprise  that  will  signalise  the  true  char- 
acter of  the  American  intervention.  Roosevelt, 
after  a  triumphant  campaign  in  Europe,  would 
lo  elected  as  sure  as  fate.  On  the  other  hand, 
Eouncing  Teddy,  wanting  to  go,  denied  the 
chance,  even  supposedly  on  party  grounds,  may 
be  elected  anyway.  So,  for  anything  I  can  see, 
Wilson,  not  as  President,  but  as  guardian  of 
the  interests  of  the  Democratic  party  is,  so  far 
as  Roosevelt  is  concerned,  between  the  devil  and 


172  AjNierica  at  war 

the  deep  blue  sea.  Of  course,  Wilson  is  so 
splendidly  brainy  and  so  quietly  and  sagacious- 
ly resourceful,  that  one  does  not  wish  to  be  too 
sure  about  it. 


XXVII 

THE  BANQUET  OF  ALL  THE  TALENTS  AT  THE 
WALDOKE 

New  York,  May  12th, 

SO  I  tliink  I  may  fairly  designate  the  dinner 
tendered  last  Friday  night  in  the  "Waldorf- 
Astoria  to  the  two  foreign  Missions  by  the 
Municipality  of  New  York.  The  floor  of  the 
hotel  ball-room  was  packed  to  repletion  by  men. 
Two  rows  of  balconies  surrounding  the  room 
on  all  sides  were  similarly  filled  with  women 
and  men.  When  Joseph  Choate  rose  to  speak, 
he  said  that  ^'for  an  hour  and  a  half  he  had 
realised  from  the  happiness  that  had  reigned  in 
'the  celestial  regions/  how  much  the  ladies 
liked  to  watch  the  lions  feed.  They  were  now 
to  hear  them  roar.'' 

Accustomed  as  Canada  long  since  has  been 
to  the  grim  side  of  war,  I  can  understand  that 
the  question  may  be  rising  in  the  minds  of  Ca- 
nadians as  to  whether  America  is  as  yet  simply 
taking  the  war  out  in  junketing.  But  there 
need  be  little  fear  on  this  score.  The  United 
States  stood,  and  to  an  extent  still  stands,  in 
need  of  '^  energising. "    To  energise  a  vast  pro- 

173 


174  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

letariat  is  no  small  undertaking.  The  brushing 
must  be  heroic.  That  heroic  brushing  is  going 
forward  magnificently.  This  indeed  has  been 
the  grand  object  of  the  French  mission  in  par- 
ticular. The  ''spectacle'^  aspects  of  the  Joffre 
receptions  constitute  an  integral  and  honour- 
able part  of  the  processes  necessary  to  provide 
the  emotional  background  for  a  war-effort 
worthy  of  America. 

Furthermore,  and  beyond  peradventure,  side 
by  side  with  ** spectacle''  and  mass  appeals  the 
underpinning  for  grim  participation  is  being 
put  in.  Take  an  instance.  Last  night  concur- 
rently with,  the  Municipal  banquet,  a  dinner  was 
being  given  in  the  Waldorf  by  the  alumni  of 
the  University  of  California.  For  what  object? 
To  signalise  the  departure  for  France  of  forty- 
two  California  undergraduates, volunteering  for 
ambulance  work.  Friends  of  the  university  are 
equipping  sixty  motor  ambulances.  *  ^  My  mother 
is  giving  one.  I  couldn't  do  much,  but  I've  man- 
aged to  put  the  tires  on  one,"  I  heard  a  dash- 
ing looking  young  alumnus  say  in  one  of  the 
corridors  of  the  hotel.  This  man  and  a  group 
with  him  w^ere  just  sending  a  note  to  "Teddy," 
asking  him  to  come  and  say  a  few  words  to  the 
guests  at  the  California  dinner.  In  five  min- 
utes out  came  Teddy,  his  teeth  showing,  and 
his  capacious  manner  flooding  the  narrow  pas- 
sage.   "I  met  you  at  Cliicago  the  other  day," 


AMERICAATWAR  175 

a  man  said  who  grasped  Roosevelt's  hand  just 
as  he  passed  me.  ^^Yes,  by  George,''  said  the 
ex-president,  as  he  stemmed  his  way  forward. 
*'I'm  mighty  glad  to  do  anything  I  can  for 
you. ' ' 

The  seating  at  the  head  table  in  the  ball-room 
interested  me  as  soon  as  I  entered.  To  the  im- 
mediate right  of  Mayor  Mitchel  presiding,  sat 
Arthur  Balfour.  Thereafter  on  his  side  came 
Governor  Wliitman  of  New  York,  Joffre,  Roose- 
velt, Spring-Rice,  Admiral  Chocheprat,  and 
Choate.  To  the  left  of  the  chairman  sat  Vivi- 
ani,  Senator  Calder  of  New  York,  Taft,  Jusser- 
and,  and  Bridges  of  the  British  army,  with  a 
*  trailing  off"  of  lesser  celebrities. 

Mitchel  the  Mayor  made  his  fellow-citizens 
proud  of  their  chief  magistrate.  His  manner 
is  not  exactly  cultured,  but  keen  and  pointed. 
He  spoke  w^ith  a  fine  air  of  conviction  that  was 
as  far  as  possible  removed  from  mere  conven- 
tionality. If  democracy  is  destroyed  in  Europe, 
it  will  be  first  menaced,  and  then  destroyed  in 
America.  At  last  we  see  it.  America  is  awake. 
We  say  to  our  friends :  We  are  with  them  to 
the  end.  America  has  been  protected  by  the 
British  navy  and  the  armies  of  France.  Our 
money  is  not  enough.  We  must  make  the  sacri- 
fice of  blood.  At  the  close  of  his  set  speech,  he 
ran  over  the  bead-roll  of  the  guests.  At  the 
name  of  each  there  was  a  demonstration.    The 


176  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

five  biggest  were  those  given  to  Joffre,  Balfour, 
Viviani,  Roosevelt  and  General  Leonard  B. 
Wood.  This  last  showed  who  that  New  York 
audience  at  any  rate  thinks  is  the  fittest  soldier 
in  the  United  States.  Bridges  of  the  British 
army,  an  iron-grey,  upstanding  type  of  man, 
got  a  warm  reception. 

MitchePs  words  in  introducing  Joseph 
Choate,  former  Ambassador  to  Britain,  were 
these:  *^We  have  chosen,  to  represent  the  en- 
tire citizenship  of  New  York,  the  most  re- 
spected, the  most  loved,  the  most  revered  of 
New  Yorkers."  Choate  looks  leonine  as  well 
as  polished.  He  spoke  with  a  sort  of  dean-like 
intimacy  that  evidently  warmed  the  hearts  of 
his  auditors.  **He  never  fails,"  I  heard  a  man 
say  as  the  speaker  sat  down.  Choate 's  genuine 
fondness  for  Britain  was  clearly  apparent. 
**Now  that  we  have  followed  the  lead  of  our 
dear  allies — Great  Britain,  our  beloved  mother, 
and  France,  our  brilliant  and  fascinating  sister, 
there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  failure."  He 
made  the  most  direct  allusion  to  the  embroglio 
over  Roosevelt's  going  to  the  front.  ^^When  a 
man,  whose  name  is  associated  with  the  United 
States  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth,  of- 
fered to  take  a  division,  I,  in  my  simple  boyish 
way,  didn't  see  why  he  shouldn't  go"  [pro- 
longed demonstration].  '^For  the  first  time 
after  two  and  a  half  years  I  am  able  to  lift  my 


AMERICAATWAR  177 

head  as  high  as  my  eighty-five  years  permit.'' 
Introducing  Balfour,  Mitchel  said :  ^  ^  No  pub- 
lic servant  of  any  country  has  been  less  self- 
seeking/'  There  is  indeed  a  strange,  compel- 
ling charm  about  Arthur  Balfour.  And  that 
charm,  it  is  almost  needless  to  say,  he  exer- 
cises effortlessly.  He  has  a  regal  presence.  I 
remember  a  great  passage  in  Bulwer  Lytton's 
^'Last  of  the  Saxon  Kings,"  in  which  the 
novelist  describes  the  return  from  outlawry 
of  Earl  Godwin  and  six  of  his  seven  sons. 
Five  of  the  six  are  armed  in  complete  mail, 
as  they  stand  at  the  prow  of  the  return- 
ing ship.  The  description  rises  in  warmth 
with  the  importance  of  the  sons;  but  the 
climax  is  reached  with  Harold,  destined  to  be 
king,  who,  for  his  part,  is  quite  unarmed.  Un- 
panoplied  he  outshines  in  moral  ascendancy  all 
his  brothers.  There  is  something  of  the  same 
ungirt  grandeur  about  Arthur  Balfour.  An  in- 
nate regality  of  mind  is  the  secret  of  his  un- 
sought potency.  Britain  could  not  by  any  pos- 
sibility have  sent  a  better  man  to  America.  His 
speech  last  night  was  eminently  characteristic. 
Only  perhaps  in  the  concluding  sentences  were 
there  evidences  of  the  cadences  that  come  to 
this  great  mind  when  he  really  searches  for 
them.  Elsewhere  there  was  a  sort  of  ambling 
discursiveness,  lit  up  ever  and  anon  with  a 
heightened    or    tragic    phrase    that    breathed 


178  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

the  agony  of  Europe,  and  once  or  twice 
thrown  a  bit  out  of  gear  by  the  inrush  of 
an  idea  that  he  hardly  knew  how  to  ac- 
commodate in  his  improvisation.  It  is  the 
simjDle  truth  that  Balfour  has  generated  a  much 
greater  affection  here  by  his  lack  of  oratory  in 
its  more  obvious  senses,  than  he  would  have 
done  by  pomp  and  circumstance  of  utterance. 
He  ended  last  night  almost  in  the  middle  of  a 
sentence.  ''My  comrades  and  I  do  not  feel  in 
coming  to  Aanerica  that  we  are  coming  among 
strangers.  We  feel  that  we  are  among  broth- 
ers and  friends'' — I  didn't  dream  that  he  had 
finished ;  but  the  prolonged  ovation  that  greeted 
the  simple  words  ended  his  speech. 

I  cannot  forgo  the  delight  of  giving  what  I 
may  call  the  core  of  his  address.  *'I  record 
my  conviction  that  we  have  reached  a  moment 
when  the  issues  of  civilisation  are  trembling  in 
the  balance.  The  millions  of  New  York  have 
thronged  its  streets  to-day  and  yesterday  be- 
cause they  instinctively  feel  that  it  is  not  desir- 
able, and  if  desirable  not  possible,  for  this  great 
nation  to  stand  aside  and  see  the  world  suffer. 
We  are  called  upon  together  to  meet  an  immi- 
nent and  overmastering  peril.  If  at  this  mo- 
ment the  world  is  bathed  in  blood  and  tears 
from  the  far  highlands  of  Armenia  to  the  fair 
fields  of  France,  shall  we  not  rise  together, 
shoulder  to  shoulder,  to  resist?    The  union  of 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  179 

the  three  western  democracies  will  prove  that 
the  free  nations  of  the  earth  cannot  be  crushed 
into  the  dust.'' 

Viviani  followed  Balfour  and  concluded  the 
programme.  This  is  the  last  time  my  path  will 
cross  that  of  the  French  Mission,  so  I  permit 
myself  to  say  a  word  about  Viviani  as  an  or- 
ator. In  the  first  place,  he  is  all  temperament. 
His  bodily  action,  as  he  speaks,  is  vigorous  in 
the  extreme.  His  face  flushes  almost  crimson. 
His  veins  stand  out  like  whip-cords.  Ever  and 
anon,  occasionally  three  or  four  times  in  rapid 
succession,  he  presses  both  hands  clenched,  and 
side  by  side,  against  his  forehead,  over  his  eyes. 
It  is  almost  as  if  he  had  gazed  on  horrid  sights 
that  persist  in  obtruding  themselves  upon  him. 
His  emotional  expenditure  is  prodigious,  and 
his  words  pour  like  a  mill-race  from  his  lips. 

Last  night  he  paid  a  glowing  tribute  to  the 
army  of  Britain,  and  to  the  cool  and  well-bal- 
anced Haig.  One  great  mistake  of  Germany 
had  been  the  mediocre  diplomats  she  had  ac- 
credited to  foreign  powers — men,  many  of  them, 
who  had  thought  they  were  hoodwinking  the 
world,  while  they  were  shining  in  salons.  This 
was  a  palpable  allusion  to  Yon  Bernstorff,  who, 
very  evidently,  was  for  long,  quite  a  lion  at 
Washington.  Germany  had  reckoned  without 
her  host  in  many  quarters — notably  with  re- 
spect to  the  British  Dominions.    The  war  has 


180  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

shown  France  to  be  possessed  in  equal  measure 
of  two  qualities,  on  the  one  hand  ^'I'rlan,  I'intre- 
pidite''  (dash  in  attack,)  on  the  other  ''hi  pa- 
tience, le  courage  tranquille.''  The  victory  of 
the  Mame  symbolises  the  one;  Verdun  symbol- 
ises the  other.  The  rapid  strokes  with  which  he 
sketched  Verdun  were  superb.  He  spoke  with 
a  sort  of  demonic  possession  as  he  pictured  the 
wrongs  of  Serbia.  As  he  poured  out,  lava-like, 
his  detestation  of  the  Germans,  his  words  hissed 
and  stung  like  scorpion  tongues.  ''We  fight  not 
simply  for  France,  not  simply  for  England,  but 
for  humanity,  but  for  democracy.  Nous  som- 
mes  tons  debout,  les  hommes  libres  du  monde. 
We  are  all  erect,  ready  to  resist, — the  free  men 
of  the  world.  *'  The  soul  of  Washington  and 
of  Lincoln  has  breathed  itself  into  the  Amer- 
ican people.  This  surprising  and  torrential  or- 
ator, whose  American  speeches  have  been  so 
many  dithyrambs  of  passion,  yet  each  varying 
from  the  other,  closed  this,  probably  his  last 
formal  utterance  in  the  United  States,  with  the 
words:  "Lift  up  your  heads — higher — ever 
higher — lift  them  as  high  as  your  flag!'' 


XXVIII 

BRITISH    PREACHERS   IN    NEW    YORK  I    HUGH    BLACK 
AND  JOWETT 

Neiv  York,  May  13th. 
T  AST  night  from  8 :30  to  11 :30  I  travelled 
-■— ^  through  Bowery,  Chinatown,  Little  Italy, 
the  Ghetto  and  the  rest,  and  saw  the  swarming 
warrens  of  the  poor.  To-day  (Sunday)  from 
12 :30  to  1 :30  I  watched  on  Fifth  avenue  thou- 
sands of  church-going  New  Yorkers.  Past  me 
streamed  dashing,  interminable  files  of  sump- 
tuous motors,  and  seemingly  unending  currents 
of  men  and  women,  most  of  them  groomed  and 
dressed  so  that  they  looked  the  acme  of  ele- 
gance.   The  contrast  was  very  striking. 

As  I  re-entered  the  hotel  (last  night)  I  said 
to  the  man  at  the  newspaper  stand:  *'How  is 
it  the — (naming  a  paper  which  I  leave  anony- 
mous here) — to-night  doesn't  report  the  passing 
of  the  Eoosevelt  amendment  by  the  House  at 

"Washington r'    ^^Well,  you  know, doesn't 

always  get  it  all."  "Is  it  rather  a  prim,  old- 
maidish  paper  I"  I  queried.  *^It  is  a  damned 
pacifist  and  pro-German  paper,  that's  what  it 
is,"  came  the  savage  answer.    *'Not  so  many  of 

181 


182  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

them  nowadays,  eh?''  I  added.  *'In  a  magnifi- 
cent minority,  thank  Heaven." 

As  I  rode  on  the  top  of  a  'bus  up  Fifth  Ave- 
nue this  afternoon,  the  patriotic  and  military 
decorations  appeared  to  fine  advantage.  The 
sun  was  refulgent,  and  all  the  flags  were  aflut- 
ter in  the  breeze.  Notable  among  the  decora- 
tions along  the  twenty-three  squares  that  I 
passed  were  those  at  the  public  libraiy.  Across 
the  front,  at  regular  intervals,  hang  oblong 
streamers  with  white  ground  and  yellow  edges. 
In  the  centre  of  successive  streamers  are  the 
pinion-raised  eagle  of  America,  Chantecleer, 
the  crowing  cock  of  France,  and  the  lion  ram- 
pant of  old  England. 

John  Henry  Jowett  of  Fifth  Avenue  Presby- 
terian church  was  to  be  my  quarry  this  morn- 
ing, but  arriving  late  I  found  the  inner  door 
locked,  the  stairs  roped  off,  and  adamantine 
ushers.  They  told  me  that  they  usually  turn 
away  hundreds.  Upon  occasion  they  have 
turned  away  as  many  as  two  thousand.  I  had 
often  wondered  how  the  great  preacher  was 
faring  in  New  York,  and  now  I  am  happy  to 
know.    I  shall  try  again  at  4 :30. 

I  had  to  walk  only  two  squares  to  find  Hugh 
L.  Black  of  the  Union  Theological  Seminary  at 
Central  Presbyterian  church,  corner  of  Madi- 
son avenue  and  57th  street.  Many  years  ago 
now  I  read  his  **  Culture  and  Eestraint."    He 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  183 

is  a  man  we  ought  to  bring  to  Winnipeg  some 
time. 

He  was  under  way  when  I  entered,  and  it  was 
a  little  while  before  I  got  his  text.  I  concluded 
at  once  that  his  subject  was  ^^The  Reality  of 
the  Spiritual,''  and  before  the  close  he  repeated 
the  text  *'What  is  Your  Life!"  He  is  a  man 
who,  in  the  distance  and  even  close,  looks  not 
unlike  R.  J.  Campbell.  A  little  more  sharpened 
and  acute  looking,  and  a  little,  not  much,  less 
mystic.  He  has  the  face,  as  many  notable 
preachers  have  had,  of  an  actor.  His  voice, 
especially  in  its  lower  register,  is  of  great  rich- 
ness. His  hands  have  febrile,  darting  rather 
than  twitching,  movements  that  suggest  high- 
strung  organisation.  Hugh  Black  made  me 
realise  this  morning,  as  I  have  always  realised 
when  under  the  spell  of  a  great  preacher,  that 
the  high  spiritual  teacher  is  an  artist  just  as 
much  say  as  the  musician  is.  There  is  little 
in  his  accent  to  remind  one  of  the  Scotch  save 
his  pronunciation  of  an  occasional  word  like 
^'eternity."  There  was  at  least  one  sentence, 
though,  that  had  a  homely  Scotch  air:  ^^From 
one  point  of  view  man  is  a  thing  of  the  day — 
just."  The  *^just,"  uttered  after  a  tiny  pause, 
was  pure  Scots. 

As  I  sat  down  the  preacher  was  saying: 
*^Even  if  there  were  no  hereafter,  he  who 
would  get  most  out  of  life's  adventure  should 


184  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

live  tlie  life  of  the  spirit.  When,  either  in  the 
American  army  or  navy,  or  in  the  British  army 
or  navy,  when  was  there  ever  a  forlorn  hope 
for  every  place  in  which  there  were  not  a  hun- 
dred vohmteers  ?  A  bubble  on  the  stream,  that 
bursts;  a  will  o'  the  wisp,  born  in  the  marsh 
and  dying  in  the  marsh — such  is  in  one  way  the 
biography  of  man.  But  he  has  another:  The 
biography  of  the  soul.  Last  Sunday  night  after 
preaching  in  this  church,  I  took  part  in  a 
municipal  service  at  Montclair — the  first  me- 
morial service  for  our  heroic  dead.  A  young 
man  of  that  place,  of  Scottish  extraction,  had 
died  at  Vimy  Ridge.  He  had  enlisted  in  a 
Highland  Scotch  Regiment  of  the  Canadian 
army.  He  was  simply  anticipating  the  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  the  youth  of  this  country 
who  must  go  the  same  way.  The  fathers  and 
mothers  of  America  must  look  forward  with 
such  equanimity  as  they  can  summon,  to  these 
sacrifices.  In  two  days  my  only  boy  goes  up  to 
Canada  to  join  the  Canadian  army.  He  is  only 
eighteen,  but,  as  he  says,  *' Daddy,  the  age  here 
is  21,  but  18  is  the  age  in  England. '^  Have  I 
nurtured  him,  you  might  say,  for  this :  to  be 
cast  as  rubbish  to  the  void?  When  I  say  that, 
or  you  say  that,  we  are  estimating  life  by  quan- 
tity. What  bigger  thing  can  a  boy  do,  if  he 
were  to  live  for  a  hundred  years,  than  to  give  his 
life  to  the  biggest  cause  that  comes  his  way? 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  185 

He  is  going  to  help  to  make  the  world  safe  for 
Democracy.  He  will  stand,  my  flesh  and  blood 
will  stand,  beside  the  very  Christ  on  Calvary.^' 
(Mr.  Black  referred  to  Lincoln's  letter  ad- 
dressed to  the  mother  who  had  given  five  sons 
to  the  Northern  canse,  ending  *'May  God  com- 
fort you  with  the  noble  pride  that  you  have 
been  enabled  to  lay  so  costly  a  sacrifice  on  the 
altar  of  freedom.")  Mr.  Black  went  on :  ''We 
that  speak  the  tongue  that  Shakespeare  spake, 
the  faith  and  morals  hold,  that  Milton  held, 
must  be  free  or  die.  We  must  be  free  or  die — 
that 's  all  there  is  to  it.  We  will  not  live  on  the 
terms  of  tyranny.  Life  is  not  a  mere  dodging 
of  days  and  dropping  of  sands."  The  preach- 
er's close  was  marked  by  a  grave,  stern  beauty: 
''Let  us  live  sobered  by  death,  let  us  die  edu- 
cated by  life.  Let  us  pass  out  when  we  must, 
laden  with  the  high  spoils  of  life,  for  the  things 
that  are  seen  are  temporal,  but  the  things  that 
are  not  seen  are  eternal." 

I  made  bold  to  speak  to  Professor  Black,  be- 
cause I  wanted  to  tell  him  that  he  had  many 
admirers  in  western  Canada.  I  thought  espe- 
cially of  my  honoured  friend,  the  Bookman  of 
the  Free  Press.  "Ah,  I  am  very  fond  of 
Canada.  I  am  going  up  there — to  Toronto — 
with  my  son  on  Tuesday." 

Regaining  Fifth  Avenue  about  12 :30  I  found 
traffic  halted  for  the  march  past  of  a  negro 


186  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

regiment — the  15th  New  York  Infantry.  They 
are  going  into  camp  at  Peekskill,  a  young  man 
told  me.  ^'Well,  they're  needed  in  France,"  I. 
said.  ^^I  hope  to  be  there  myself  soon/'  the 
boy  answered.  Do  not  even  my  scattered  ob- 
servations prove  that  the  great  land  is  in  a 
ferment? 

Between  the  last  paragraph  and  this,  I  have 
heard  Jowett.  I  should  say  1,700  people  filled, 
without  crowding,  the  spacious  and  richly  col- 
oured interior  of  the  Fifth  Avenue  church.  As 
the  audience  rose  for  the  first  time,  I  was  sur- 
prised to  notice  that  the  front  rows  were  well 
up  toward  the  pulpit  level.  Glancing  about  I 
saw  that  the  centre  of  the  church's  depth  was, 
so  to  say,  a  valley.  Perhaps  thirty  feet  from 
the  front  the  floor  begins  to  rise  in  both  direc- 
tions— an  excellent  device. 

Jowett — who,  only  at  the  close  of  the  service 
I  learned,  is  returning  to  England  to  take  the 
place  of  Campbell  Morgan  in  Westminster 
Chapel — is  a  rather  business-like  looking  man, 
ruddy-coloured,  white-moustached.  He  has  a 
rapid-fire  utterance  that  now  peals  out  bugle- 
like and  now  sinks  into  the  softness  of  the 
quietist.  He  is  full  of  fresh  unexpected  turns. 
Conventional-looking  he  does  nothing  conven- 
tionally. This  preacher  who  on  the  whole 
stresses  the  ^^ interior"  aspects  of  Christianity, 
reads  hymns,  makes  announcements,  and  de- 


AMERICAATWAR  187 

livers  parts  of  his  sermons,  as  a  man  of  busi- 
ness might. 

His  text  was,  *'Add  to  Your  Virtue  (and  a 
lot  of  other  things) — Knowledge.*'  There  was, 
with  one  exception,  no  reference  to  the  war. 
But  that  exception  was  significant.  Moulton, 
the  preacher  said,  had  with  his  rare  insight  en- 
riched the  ordinary  reading  of  the  passage. 
*^In  your  faith,  and  so  on,  supply  Knowledge.'' 
The  figure  Moulton  had  pointed  out,  was  that 
of  the  orchestra.  *^The  music  of  life  is  to  be 
like  that  of  a  great  band.  Let  your  life  be 
choral.  Choose  your  instruments  wisely.  "When 
you  have  got  one,  bring  another  to  it."  Now 
Moulton,  a  month  or  so  ago,  was  returning 
from  India.  In  the  Mediterranean  his  vessel 
was  torpedoed.  All  got  safely  into  small  boats, 
but  four  days  exposure  was  too  much,  and 
Moulton  succumbed.  ^^His  companions  have 
told  how  they  dropped  his  body  into  its  wan- 
dering grave.  I  knew  him  well.  He  was  a  great 
scholar.  He  was  a  greater  saint."  Thus  all 
roads,  no  matter  how  apparently  distant  in 
origin  or  in  destination,  lead  to  or  through  the 
war.  I  know  it  would  be  an  indiscretion  for 
me,  under  the  general  caption  that  is  controlling 
me,  to  give  more  than  a  glimpse  of  a  sermon 
which,  with  the  exception  of  the  one  side-glance 
I  have  noted,  had  no  reference  to  the  war,  but  I 
cannot  refrain  from  saying  that  hardly  ever 


188  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

have  I  left  a  church  with  more  unwilling  steps. 
The  ripe  wisdom  of  this  choice  master  of  the 
human  spirit  clung  about  the  place  as  the  light 
of  the  sunset  clings  to  the  Alpine. peak.  (Every- 
body, by  the  way,  seems  to  be  going  to  Canada. 
''We  are  going  through  to  the  Rockies, '^  he 
said.  "Perhaps  I  shall  see  you  in  Winnipeg.") 
From  the  thraldom  of  this  seraphic  doctor  of 
the  soul  I  passed  once  more  into  the  clangour  of 
the  war-preparations.  Less  than  a  square  be- 
low 55th  street  on  Fifth  Avenue  again,  as  at 
noon,  I  met  a  regiment  returning  from  church 
— the  12th  New  York  Infantry,  this  time.  A  tip- 
top body  of  men.  A  little  farther  down  I  met 
a  group  of  French  marines.  When  I  said:  **  Je 
salue  la  France,"  their  hands  shot  out  briskly. 
They  came  from  the  Lower  Seine.  The  paper 
that  I  bought  a  few  minutes  later,  bore  the 
giant  legend:  *' President  will  give  Eoosevelt 
army  command  is  Belief."  From  inner  pages 
of  the  same  paper  I  glean  items  like  these:  (1) 
"Taft's  one  son  accepted.  Under  age,  so  has 
to  have  parents'  consent.  A  second  son  re- 
jected because  of  eyes.  (2)  Roosevelt  has  one 
son  already  serving  in  an  aviation  corps.  He 
said  the  other  night  here  that  three  more  were 
going  into  camp.  'People  tell  me  they'll  have 
a  rough  time.  I  hope  they  do.'  (3)  The  first 
three  states  to  fill  their  army  quota  [this  al- 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  189 

hides  to  the  expanding  of  regulars  and  of  state 
militia  to  war  streng-th,  and,  of  course,  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  new  drafted  army]  are 
Utah,  Nevada  and  Oregon." 


XXIX 

AN    ENSEMBLE    VIEW    OF    AMERICANS    FIRST    MONTH 
AND   A   HALF    OF    WAR 

Winnipeg,  May  19th. 
rjlHE  editor  of  the  Free  Press  has  suggested 
-*■  that,  having  returned  to  Winnipeg,  and 
my  series  of  American  letters  being  completed, 
I  should  add  a  resumptive  word  on  the  situa- 
tion in  general.  At  the  risk  of  repeating,  and 
at  the  risk  of  dashing  something  off  in  undue 
haste,  I  obey  the  instruction. 

In  general  terms  I  think  that  Canadians  may 
feel  assured  that  the  state  of  American  opinion 
could  not  easily  be  better  from  our  point  of 
view  than  it  is  to-day.  To  the  chief  among  the 
Allies  America  is  now  bound  by  the  closest  ties. 
The  warmth  of  American  comradeship  with 
France  cannot  be  overstated.  This  might  be 
analysed  in  detail  but  I  forbear  here.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  this  feeling  animates  all  grades 
of  society.  The  intellectual  element  prizes  the 
clarity,  luminousness,  and  humanity  of  French 
culture.  The  politicians  emphasize  the  identity 
of  American  and  French  democracy.  The  man 
on  the  street  knows  about  Lafayette  and  that 

190 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  191 

is  enough  to  fill  him  with  gratitude.  Inciden- 
tally, I  visited  the  old  Castle  Garden  building 
at  the  Battery,  now  a  beautifully  stocked 
aquarium,  where  in  1824  Henry  Clay  welcomed 
Lafaj^ette. 

Britain  stands  out  to-day  before  the  in- 
formed American  mind  as  the  plucky,  indom- 
itable, and  wonderfully  resourceful  champion 
of  the  world's  liberties — the  one  w^ho  stands  in 
the  breach  whoever  else  wavers.  On  the  Rus- 
sian situation  the  American  government  and 
people  are  keeping  the  closest  eye.  America  is 
prepared  to  throw  endless  money  into  the  task 
of  steadying  Russia  in  her  moment  of  dire  per- 
plexity. Reed  Smoot,  the  Republican  Mormon 
from  Utah,  I  heard  say:  ^*If  the  President 
wants  to  advance  a  billion  to  Russia,  even 
without  the  slightest  prospect  of  return,  I  am 
ready  to  hold  up  both  hands  in  support." 

I  think  I  may  safely  say  that  the  all  but 
universal  attitude  in  the  United  States  is 
*  ^  what  can  w^e  do  to  help  1 ' '  And  I  pause  to  say 
sharply  that  there  is  no  crowing  going  on.  We 
thought  loosely  here  that  as  soon  as  the  United 
States  declared  war,  the  people  would  break 
out  with  the  cry :  We  are  the  people.  We  are 
going  to  end  it.  When  it  is  ended  it  is  we 
who  shall  have  ended  it.  I  am  able,  I  think,  to 
say  that  little  of  the  sort  is  occurring.  Ameri- 
cans admit  that  they  have  waited  too  long,  that 


192  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

too  long  they  have  left  the  Atlantcan  weight 
of  the  defence  of  freedom  resting  on  the  shoul- 
ders and  on  the  agony  of  others.  Thus  they 
admit  that  they  come  in  chastened.  Of  course 
they  are  not  so  naive  as  to  fail  to  recognise  their 
immense  potentiality;  but  they  mourn  that 
that  potentiality  has  been  left  so  long  un- 
harnessed in  this  gigantic  struggle  for  the 
saving  of  the  fundamental  rights  of  humanity. 
And  that  question  which  I  quoted  above  *^What 
can  we  do  to  help!'',  and  which  is  on  the  lips  of 
so  many,  is  just  an  expression  of  the  broad 
generic  kindliness  that  is  such  a  widespread 
characteristic  of  the  American  people.  **The 
States  could  feed  herself  and  let  the  rest  of  the 
world  starve,''  said  my  'bus  driver  in  New 
York,  as  we  started  away  from  the  Battery, 
*^but  she  isn't  so  damned  mean." 

The  Chicago  Tribune,  in  a  number  that  I 
read  on  my  way  home,  reported  the  following. 
It  may  be  apocryphal  or  it  may  be  a  fact,  I  do 
not  know.  A  British  army  officer  is  sent  to  Ta- 
coma  by  his  government.  He  gets  a  wire  order- 
ing him  to  report  in  London,  and  to  sail  by  a  cer- 
tain ship.  He  misses  his  train  at  Cleveland, 
and  applies  to  the  New  York  Central  in  his 
dilemma.  The  superintendent  makes  up  a  spe- 
cial train,  rushes  him  through,  carries  him  one 
stretch  of  186  miles  in  two  and  a  half  hours, 
brings  him  to  New  York  fifteen  minutes  before 


AMERICA    AT    WAR  193 

his  boat  sails,  and  refuses  to  take  a  cent  for  the 
service. 

The  last  five  weeks  have  witnessed  a  great 
advance  in  war  sentiment  and  war  prepared- 
ness in  America.  "When  I  arrived  in  Washing- 
ton about  the  fifteenth  of  April,  conscription 
was  being  eyed  with  critical  suspicion.  Espe- 
cially the  men  of  the  older  generation,  ani- 
mated by  memories  of  the  Civil  War,  were 
against  it.  This  opposition  has  faded.  Wilson 
has  scored  here  undeniably.  There  remains  of 
course  the  question  as  to  what  precisely  will 
happen  when  the  Draft  is  applied.  What  will 
happen  in  densely  populated  German  cities  and 
sections  of  cities?  What  will  the  men  upon 
whom  the  lot  falls  do,  as  they  walk  in  streets, 
drink  in  German  restaurants,  where  they  hear 
little  but  German  spoken,  and,  in  a  word,  feel 
themselves  segregated  from  English  America 
by  a  German  milieu?  I  can  only  say  that  I 
think  the  chances  are  they  will  bend  their  backs 
to  their  nationally  imposed  American  burden. 
For  one  thing  I  am  informed  that  the  authori- 
ties have  been  very  thorough  in  stripping  Ger- 
mans of  arms.  And  one  thing  we  may  be  sure 
of,  to  the  extent  that  German-Americans  offer 
opposition,  they  will  find  the  going  hard.  Noth- 
ing will  so  rapidly  mature  domestic  American 
opinion  as  the  appearance,  even  incipiently,  of 
anti-national  opposition.  America  is  in  no  mood 


194  AMERICA    AT    WAR 

to  be  trifled  with.  Her  national  purpose  is  to 
make  a  war  effort  coiumensiirate  with  her  re- 
sources and  her  status,  and  she  won't  mince 
action  in  dealing  wdth  so-called  citizens  who 
show  a  disposition  to  thw^^rt  her  policy. 

Both  in  the  United  States  and  here  there  is 
some  impatience  with  the  supposed  slowness 
of  Congress  in  winding  up  war  bills.  A  large 
number  of  bills  are  still  a  stage  under  consum- 
mation. I  Avisli  to  say,  nevertheless,  that  the 
two  Houses  of  Congress  are  able  bodies.  The 
Senate  is  stately  and  impressive.  The  House 
is  tumultuous  but  sincere  and  earnest.  I  speak 
here  of  course  in  general  terms.  And  attention 
must  be  called  to  the  fact  that  the  measures 
under  consideration  are  momentous  in  magni- 
tude and  import.  You  cannot  expect  tw^o  popu- 
lar Chambers  to  vote  seven  billions  overnight. 
You  caimot  expect  such  Houses  to  add  a  rev- 
enue of  about  tw^o  billions  w^ithout  exchanging 
a  word.  The  censorship  bill  involved  the  most 
important  considerations  of  public  freedom. 

For  the  rest,  even  if  the  last  touches  have 
not  been  put  to  all  sucli  bills,  great  work  is 
nevertheless  being  done.  Minute  precautions 
for  taking  the  draft  registration  are  already 
complete.  Within  two  months  of  the  declara- 
tion of  a  state  of  war  the  nation  will  know  to  a 
nicety  its  resources  of  man  power  within  the 
ages  of  21  to  30.    The  Council  of  National  De- 


AMERICA   AT    WAR  195 

fence  has  matured  an  intricate  and  compre- 
hensive organisation.  The  inventive  genius  of 
the  country  is  silently  being  concentrated  on 
devices  for  conquering  the  submarine.  America 
invented  the  submarine,  and  may,  easily  con- 
ceivably, find  a  way  of  overcoming  it.  A  flo- 
tilla of  destroyers  has  already  arrived  in  Brit- 
ish waters.  This  means  that  any  day  German 
periscopes  may  be  shot  away  by  American  gun- 
ners, and,  almost  assuredly,  American  blood 
will  flow.  And  when  it  flows,  the  die  will  be 
cast  even  more  definitively  than  it  now  is. 

Important  instalments  of  the  American  loans 
are  already  in  the  hands  of  the  Allies.  The 
Italian  Commission  has  quickly  followed  the 
British  and  French  Missions  to  American  soil. 
The  American  delegation  to  Russia,  the  visible 
token  of  warm  American  sympathy  for  the 
struggling  democracy  of  that  country,  has  quite 
probably  already  left  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 
Unless  a  man  is  hard  to  please  it  is  dif&cult  to 
see  what  more  could  be  expected  of  the  Ameri- 
can government  and  people  in  the  short  space 
of  a  month  and  a  half.  Let  the  man  who  does 
not  dwell  in  a  glass  house  throw  stones. 

And  having  mentioned  the  American  Mission 
to  Russia,  I  close  with  this :  The  second  name 
on  that  Mission  is  the  name  of  John  R.  Mott. 
Wlio  is  Mott?  Probably  the  foremost  religious 
worker  of  America.  It  is  profoundly  significant 


196  AMERICAATWAR 

that  be  has  been  thus  included.  What  does  it 
mean?  That  for  America,  ideas,  ideals,  and 
the  spiritual  consciousness  are  what,  at  this 
moment,  mean  most  in  the  eyes  of  America. 
America  realises  to-day  that  politics,  de- 
mocracy, civilisation  and  religion  are  one.  Dol- 
lars are  secondary,  organisation  is  subsidiary. 
Spirituality,  Ideality,  and  Brotherhood  are  the 
watchwords  of  the  future.  Christianity  has 
made  its  investment.  The  world  hungrily  de- 
mands first  the  rescue  and  then  the  full  eman- 
cipation of  all.  These  interests  are  imperilled, 
and  into  the  lists  America  will  throw  its  full 
force,  marshalled  primarily  by  the  men,  who 
are  the  spiritual  interpreters  of  the  best  that 
America  stands  for. 


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